


Beneath a Sanguine Moon

by Solemini (CyanHorne)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Community: rotg_kink, Gen, Hunger Games AU, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanHorne/pseuds/Solemini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Frost was not the name drawn from the pot. He’d no obligation to step up in place of the trembling child called to the stage. But he had, and now he faced certain death as the male Tribute from District 10 for the 71st Annual Hunger Games. But there's more going on here than he knows. Who is Tsar Lunar? What is the secret plan of the four Tributes who bear his mark of the crescent moon? And what do they want with Jack?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for a prompt at the rotg_kink meme: http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/1511.html?thread=941287#cmt941287
> 
> The above link includes a bonus scene/preview of things to come, if you're curious. I actual wrote an entire chapter of this in third-person before deciding it would be better from Jack's PoV, and that's one scene that just wouldn't work from that perspective, so it became a preview. 
> 
> I actually intended to cover much more in this chapter, but the scenes kept getting longer and longer, so I decided to split it into two parts. Hope you enjoy!

There’s a new white shirt waiting for me the night before Reaping Day. 

It hangs opposite the window in the little room I share with my sister, crisp and clean without a hint of darning or stain. I’m almost afraid to touch it with dirt caked under my nails. My fingers skim the edges just long enough to get a feel for the cloth. It’s thick and just a little rough, made from the scraps of wool rejected by Districts 1 and 8. I can tell because, despite the bleaching, there are still irregularities in the threads.

Mama frets when she sees me trying it on for the first time. It’s not much, she says, and what she really wanted to get me was new shoes, but she couldn’t afford the pair and the missus down the street gave her a good price on the shirt and…and…

It takes three reassurances before she accepts that yes, it’s fine, and not to worry about the shoes. I outgrew the last pair two years ago. Been going barefoot ever since, but it doesn’t bother me. Besides, it isn’t like anyone’s going to see my feet anyway. I’m lucky Frost, the one who survived. The odds are in my favor.

Mama smiles, but it doesn’t get all the way to her eyes.

That night, we sit together for hours, turning her bed into a nest to defend against what’s coming with the morning sun. She holds me close and won’t let go, ignoring the protests that I’m not a child, I’m seventeen. That’s practically a man. My sister Emma curls in my lap, chiming in on occasion but mostly just listening. We don’t move again until she falls asleep.

* * *

I’m not wearing the new shirt when I slip out the next morning. I wouldn’t want to dirty it before the Reaping, not after all the trouble Mama went through to get it. My old clothes, tattered and shapeless though they are, will do just as well until it’s time.

Emma stirs when I first leave the bed, whining in her sleep like a newborn kid. I linger beside her until she slips off again, then gather my cloak and staff and escape into the cool, crisp air of the mountains in the early morn.

In school, they tell us that District 10 is one of the three great land-districts of Panem. Along with the people of District 9, who grow grain, and those of District 11, who grow everything else, we make up the food belt: the backbone of the nation. Other Districts are contained to a single city or system of mines, but our people are spread throughout a wide area of varied ecosystems and terrains, each carefully chosen to best support the animals in our care.

For my village, 10-23, that means goats. Lots and lots of goats. They’re not vital to national sustenance like chickens or cows or pigs, but apparently there’s enough Capitol demand for rich milk, earthy cheese, and textiles like cashmere and mohair to warrant a dozen goats for every man, woman, and child in Village 23.

Normally, at this time of day, the dirt road outside our house – which is the only way in or out of town, save for the birds – would be crawling with the little bovines as grown-ups herded the flock from their barn by the south river to the grazing fields north of town. But today is Reaping Day, and so the road is empty, save for the ice-edged morning dew that pools in ridges left by cloven hooves.

Silent as a snake in the grass, I go around back of the house next door and rap on the rear windowsill three times. It opens immediately. Jaime Bennett, his hair tousled and his eyes rimmed with red, peers out from between the panes.

“Is that you, Jack?” he calls in a whisper.

I snort. What a silly question. “‘Course it’s me, kiddo. You coming or what?”

“I’m coming! Just a sec.”

He disappears, scrambling back into the room. I hear him drag the too-large hunting boots onto his bed and scramble for his other clothes. He’s moving much slower today than most. And don’t think I missed those red-rimmed eyes or the smeared remnants of tear-trials on his cheeks. Poor kid didn’t sleep a wink last night, and I don’t blame him. It’s his first year.

When he reappears a moment later, Jamie doesn’t protest when I lift him from the window to the ground, even though he hates being treated like a child. That gives me the chance to run my fingers along his ribs, right where he’s the most ticklish. The laugh bursts from him in an undignified shriek. Jamie clasps both his hands over his mouth.

“Jack! Stop it!” he yelps in a half-whisper, kicking as he tries to wiggle from my reach. “You’re gonna get us caught!”

“Me? You’re the one who’s laughing.” One hand makes it through to his bare side, my fingers catching every one of his (much too easily counted) ribs. “Stop laughing, Jamie!”

Jamie kicks again, loses his balance, and topples into the sparse grass, still trying desperately to get his laughter under control. With a rattle of glass and wood, the window on the side of his cabin flies open and his mother leans out, clutching four-year-old Sophie around the waist.

For a split second, her eyes are panicked and wide, searching the yard for her child. Then they fall on me and a familiar expression – half frustration, half amusement – flickers in the place of fear. She sighs. “I should’ve known it was you, Jack Frost.”

“Jack Jack Jack!” echoes Sophie, giggling as she tries to tumble out the window after her brother. “Wanna play with Jack!”

Missus Bennett keeps a tight hold on her daughter’s waist, keeping her pinned safe in the walls of their home. She eyes me carefully, trying to judge my intent from a distance. “Where are you boys off to, at this time of day?”

This time on _this_ day, she means. I send her the most reassuring smile I can muster, hooking my staff around Jamie’s waist to help him to his feet. “Just checking on the flock. Promised Mr. Gray I’d swing by just to make sure everything’s a-okay, and Jamie said he’d help me out. Right Jamie?”

“Yup.” Jamie beams. I should probably be ashamed of myself for teaching a twelve-year-old to follow my lies, but I’m not. I’m so proud.

Missus Bennett’s gaze trails from me to her son and back again. She knows there’s not a grain of truth in any of it; I can see it in the wrinkles around her nose and eyes. Maybe someone, somewhere is in charge of checking on the flock on Reaping Day, but it’s sure not me, and it’d never be Jamie. There’s no guarantee we’ll be around to finish the job, after all.

But – maybe because it is Reaping Day, or because she sees the fear Jamie that hides, or because she’s a mother and she’s so worried for her child – she doesn’t call us out on it. Instead, she sighed again and stretches out to ruffle Jamie’s hair.

“All right then. Be careful, and watch the time, you understand? Jamie, I want you back for a bath two hours before Reaping and not a moment later.”

Jamie agrees with a quick and quiet, “Yes Mama. I will, Mama,” before breaking into a grin and jog, calling for me to follow. Before I can, Missus Bennett reels me in by my elbow, dropping her tone to a whisper so Jamie and Sophie can’t hear.

“Look after him, Jack. Please. Don’t do anything too risky, not today. Just take care of my boy.”

From the street, Jamie calls me again, just loud enough that he might not bother the neighbors if they’re sound enough asleep. I fold my hand over Missus Bennett’s, offering her a smile and a comforting squeeze.

“Don’t worry,” I promise. “I always do."

* * *

Five years ago, when I was twelve and Jamie was seven, our fathers – who’d been best friends their entire lives – got caught hunting beyond the borders of District 10. As always, the winter that year was cold and cruel, and if they hadn’t hunted our families would have starved; but Peacekeepers wouldn’t hear any of it.

Without so much as a trial, our fathers were sentenced to hang.

At the time, Missus Bennett was pregnant with Sophie. She and Emma were allowed to stay home the day of the execution. But Jamie and I, as the new men of the households, were forced to attend. Even now, the sound Da’s neck made at the end of his rope chases me in my worst dreams.

The Head Peacekeeper, a cruel man who smiles like thin ice, came by while they were taking down the bodies and ruffled my hair. “Let this be a lesson boys,” he told us. “Be better than your fathers.”

We took that to mean, ‘Be smarter. Don’t get caught.’

And so we are.

Neither Jamie nor I are built for hunting, so he keeps watch while I slip across the southern river and shimmy through the gap in the fence that lines the opposite side. Jamie’s faster collecting off the northern traps because he’s so much smaller, but he can’t swim, so along the river is my game. As far up in the mountains as we are here, we can’t hope for too much in terms of rabbits or fish or voles, but what we get is enough to keep our families going in the worst of times.

Again, behind the tree line, I find the odds are once more in my favor. There’s a whole rabbit – the first and plumpest we’ve seen since the end of winter – hanging dead from one of our snares. I return with my arms full of fresh meat and fur, and the look on Jamie’s face makes it worth all the risk. With a bucket of berries and a bit of fresh cheese, this is enough to give both our families a real Reaping Day feast to share.

We ferret the rabbit away in Jamie’s bag and head downriver with our feet in the shallows, talking of everything and nothing while we scrub our hands and feet clean and spot for wild berries along the fence’s edge. We’re half-way to the furthest south-east corner, where the village fences meet, when Jamie suddenly stops. He stares at his feet through the river, trailing out of the conversation and into his own thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, bracing my staff against the shore.

Jamie shrugs, his huge boots dangling at the end of his arms. He kicks at the water, turns slowly on the spot, glances towards the village square, and sighs. “How many times is your name in today?”

I have to think about it. One for every year since twelve, plus my whole life on tesserae, means…

“Twenty-four.”

Jamie shudders from head to toe, sending ripples against the current of the river.

“Hey, c’mon. It’s not that bad.”

“Yes it is.” He’s breathing hard now, almost hyperventilating with the effort of keeping his emotions under control. “You’ve…You’ve got as many slips in there as there are boys in the village. That’s got be like…like half the pot!”

“No, it’s not.” I wade a little deeper into the water, widening the stride to keep my balance on the way back. “All the older boys are in the same position as me. There’s not a kid in this town who’s not on tesserae, and some of them have even bigger families to worry about. We’re all about even.”

“That just makes it worse! If there’s any chance at all…” He bites his lip so hard I can see the dent his teeth left when he finally gets the words together. “What will we…What’ll we do if they pick your name, Jack?”

He’s falling head-first into his own fears. If we’re going to get through the day, I can’t let that happen.

With a splash, I hop up on a smooth, flat rock on the edge of the bank, swiping my staff at the water to stir up a wave. “Pick my name?” I laugh, letting the sound carry like I don’t care who hears. “What if they pick _my_ name? Jamie Bennett, did you forget who I am? What is my name?”

Jamie pouts, worrying his bottom lip like it’s a trick question. “…Jack Frost.”

“That’s right,” I hop across the deep water to another rock, earning a squeak of fear from Jamie. “Now, who was it again who survived the worst winter 10-23 ever saw when he was just a wee babe?" 

“Jack Frost.” Jamie’s pout turns into the smallest of smirks, though I think it comes more from my terrible impression of old man White than anything else.

“Right as rain.” I laugh again, dropping the stupid accent. “And who is it who always finds the little milking goats the wander away from the herd, no matter how deep in the mountain they’ve gone or what little crevice they’ve nestled away in?”

“Jack Frost.”

“You got it. And who was it who found that ancient well last winter? By tumbling into it, head-first, through the snow and ice? And who – who, Jamie? – came out the other side of that little misadventure with only two bruises and a touch of a cold?”

“Jack Frost!”

“That’s right!” I leap down from the rocks, splashing us both with a wave of cold and scooping Jamie out of the current with my staff.  “ _I_ am Jack Frost. The winter loves me. The mountain loves me. And I’m the luckiest boy in the world.”

I swing him up onto the dry shore, sweep the waterproof cloak off my own shoulders, and wrap it around him. It swims on him, the hood falling to hide every speck of brown eyes and hair, leaving nothing exposed save a cold-flushed smile.

“The odds are always in my favor, Jamie,” I tell him, pinching the tip of his nose. “They are never going to pick my name. Not ever.”

Jamie laughs again, shaking the cloak’s hood off his head. For a moment his face is free of fear, flush only with the cold of the river and the excitement of a new day. Seeing him safe like this and smiling is enough for me.

But it’s all too brief. A bell echoes from the Justice Building in the village square, chiming the hour – ten o’clock. The Reaping is scheduled for just after noon. Jamie’s smile fades and so does mine. He pulls off the cloak, folds it, and hands it to me.

“We should go,” he mutters. And so we do, without another word. 


	2. During

Because District 10 is so large and so populated, our Reaping is a tad more complicated than those in the smaller areas. About two weeks before Reaping Day, there’s a prelim round of drawing in the District capitol that determines which village or town will provide which Tributes. The drawing is weighted based on the eligible population of the area and how much tesserae they’ve received, so the lot usually lands with the cow or pig or chicken farms, since that’s where most of the population lives. 

It’s bad news for them, but good for the little towns, like 23. Even with every family taking tesserae at one point or another, 23 is still small enough that we almost never get drawn. Our last Tribute came fifteen years ago. It’ll probably be fifteen more before we ever have to send another.  
  
I try to keep that in mind while I’m helping Emma with her hair. Only the male tribute this year will come from 23. If the odds stay in our favor, my sweet sister will never face the possibility of the Arena.

Still, her hands tremble, clasped tight over her knees. When the braid is done she spins around and throws her arms over my shoulders. They’re too thin, barely more than sticks, but still there’s strength in them as she clings to me, the new white shirt a thick and foreign barrier between us

“Jack,” she whispers in my ear. “I’m scared.”  
  
Scared for me. I wrap my arms around her waist and hold tight. “I know. But it’s going to be all right. Everything will be okay.”  
  
She sniffles, careful to wipe her eyes on the back of her hand where nothing can get stained or smudged. “No it’s not,” she says.   
  
“Would I trick you?”  
  
“Yes. You always play tricks.”  
  
I laugh. She’s got me there. “Well, alright. But not this time.” I give her waist another squeeze, stroking the length of her braid. “I promise, everything’s going to be fine.”  
  
“How can you know?”  
  
I waver, because I can’t know. Our village, as I might have mentioned before, is tiny. There’s barely two dozen boys to pick from. No matter whose name comes up, it will be someone we know. A classmate. A coworker. A friend.  
  
But I can’t tell Emma that, so instead I smile, pushing her just far enough away that I can rub the saltwater off her cheeks with my thumb. “You just have to believe me, okay? Everything’s going to be all right. It’s only a…a game. Like the one we play in the winter, with the dice. You remember how hard it is to pick the right number?”

She scrunches up her face, trying to remember. The game’s usually limited to adults, gambling in the desperate shadows behind barns, but during long snowstorms it moves inside, where kids bet buttons and rocks. She nods.

“Well, there you go. It’s exactly the same.”

Emma frowns, like she knows that my logic’s off somewhere but she can’t figure out exactly where. I always hate the way she looks when she frowns. It reminds me of the time after Da died but before I’d gotten up the nerve to scavenge and trap on my own, when she was too little to hide her hunger and too young to go so long without her belly full.

 “Hey, perk up. We’ve got good odds today.” I give her my best conspiratorial grin and pull her close by the sash around her waist, whispering into her ear. “We’ve even got a special treat for dinner tonight, with plenty of fresh meat. But don’t tell anybody ‘cause then they’ll all want a bite and they’ll eat up all the good parts. It’s just between you and me, you got it?”

It’s not my best distraction. Even I’m running low on material on Reaping Day. Still, Emma smiles, if only to humor me, and nuzzles her head into my neck like a kitten from the barn. I hold her close a moment longer, thinking of how her eyes will light up when she sees the nice plump juicy rabbit that Jamie and I hid away as our Reaping Day surprise.

Then Mom appears at the door to our room. She hesitated in the entryway, tries to speak, and fails, pressing her hand over her mouth. By the time she’s composed herself again, we’ve broken away and she manages to pull herself together.

“It’s time,” she says quietly.

I nod and straighten my new shirt before taking Emma’s hand and leading her out into the street.

We meet the Bennetts just outside our home, Jamie holding tight to Sophie’s hand to keep her from wandering off. Missus Bennett ruffles my hair with something almost like affection before taking hold of Jamie’s free hand. Without a word, we walk together to the heart of Village 23, soon joined by the rest of our neighbors as the clock tower rings the one o’clock chimes.

The town center is almost unrecognizable by the time we get there. Normally, it’s just an open lawn of mostly-dead grass in front of our tiny Justice building, bisected diagonally by the road and lined with storefronts on either side. Today, thanks to the tireless efforts of 10-1’s Reaping Committee, it’s been transformed into an outdoor theater worthy of Capitol attention. The stores are draped in colored banners bearing the seal of Panem, which almost hide the cameras perched on rooftops and out windows to catch the best views.

The centerpiece of the whole affair is a wooden stage set up just past the step of the justice building, draped in cloth to match the banners. A glass globe the size of a rare harvest cheese wheel hangs in the center, its silver supports tarnished from years without use. Its backdrop is a projection screen, currently dominated by the Seal of District 10. It’s quite a clever set-up, really; anyone not from 23 would never guess that they built the whole thing from our gallows.

It doesn’t take too long for the population of 23 to file in. There’s only about three hundred or so, total. The eligible boys – including Jamie and I – are herded to the roped-off pen in the center of the lawn. We’re left standing there for a long while after check-in, no doubt waiting for the twenty-two larger (and five smaller) towns of District 10 to get ready. Reaping Day is the one time a year we’re all united in spite of our distance and differences.

I stand on my toes, trying to spot Emma or Sophie in the crowd, but they’re too little for me to catch a glimpse. I settle for Jamie, who stands right on the front of our pen with his classmates, Monty and the twins. They’re all fidgeting like they want nothing more than to cling to each other and cry, but they’re holding it in because boys don’t do that. When James steals a glance my way, I give him a thumbs-up and grin. He returns the smile and quickly faces front again.

With his attention back on the stage and everyone else occupied with their own problems, I can finally admit the truth, if only to myself: I am terrified. Ice sinks into my stomach, settling into a heavy sludge. The new white shirt feels stiflingly hot and it’s all I can do not to tug on it in my own squirmy bout of nerves.

For all my talk of luck, the fact is that twenty-four of the folded slips in that orb of class have ‘Jack Frost’ written on them in careful script. Though I know that the eighteen-year-olds – all four of them – and at least two of the sixteen-year-olds are in similar bots, it still means that the odds are against me. My fellow upper-years seem to understand this. The glances we give each other are curt and cold, carrying solidarity, not friendship.

I close my eyes and black out the world, repeating my own words back in my mind. I am Jack Frost. Lucky Frost. The one who survived. Winter loves me. The mountain loves me. The odds love me.

They will not draw my name.

The sound of someone tapping the microphone draws my attention back to the stage. The woman perched coquettishly on her stool up there is not technically the District 10 escort, she’s his assistant. That means she’s barely more than twenty five, as generically pretty as hideous Capitol fashion allows, and always gets sent off to the smaller or more remote of the two Tribute towns so her boss doesn’t have to bother.

I recognized her from previous years. He name is something like Claudette, but I only remember her because of the tiny animal with electric blue fur sticking out of the handbag she’s got perched on her knees. I’ve been told that thing is a dog, but it doesn’t look like any dog I’ve ever seen. It’d be useless for herding or hunting or anything else dogs are actually meant for. Leave it to the Capitol to engineer animals for fashion statements. I don’t even know if it’s the same one as last year or if she buys a new breed every year to match her garish outfits.

She bats her terrifyingly long fake eyelashes and clears her throat into the mike, calling for silence in a field where no one speaks. She then turns, expectantly, to the projector screen. The District logo flickers, then disappears. It’s soon replaced by the live broadcast from 10-4, where the female Tribute will be reaped.

The ceremony that follows is the same as every year. Claudette and her boss – a male escort in his forties who changes his hair every year and wants to be Caesar Flickerman so bad I’m almost embarrassed for him – exchange scripted banter cluing Capitol viewers into which “beautiful regions of District 10” their sacrifices will come from this year. Then the District mayor comes on for the long and boring speech on the history of Panem, the Dark Days, the annihilation of District 13, the Treaty of Treason, and finally the Hunger Games.

As he reads off the list of District 10’s Victors– five total, three still living – I allow myself to imagine what it might be like if our Tribute actually won. Ten’s last Victory came twelve years ago and was directly responsible for three times our usual number of infants surviving the winter, including Jamie and Emma. And that was just a District victory. Having a local winner means securing the lion’s share of the reward for your home town and that of your District partner. It means a whole year of good wheat, fine oil, actual _sweets_ , clothes, blankets, and shoes.

It’s not worth the Games. Nothing is worth the Games. But imagining a world where our people have those things makes the hardship easier to bare.

Once the living Victors have been showcased along with summaries of their greatest deeds, attention cuts back to the escort in 10-4, who’s all a-twitter as usual. He gleefully selects a name from a glass that must be three or four times the size of ours, calling a strawberry blonde from among the chicken farmers. Admirably, she doesn’t break down, just scowls at her feet and gives curt answers to all his questions.

Finally, after almost an hour of pomp and circumstance, he turns it over to Claudette. She doesn’t get a speech, but she’s still _so excited_ to be here and announces as much while she totters to the orb with her dog tucked under one arm.

I can’t watch. The moment she draws the slip, I close my eyes.

They will not draw my name. They will never draw my name. They could never…

It is not my name.

And yet, my heart falls straight out of my chest and shatters on the ground like a ball of ice.

“Jamie Bennett?” Claudette reads again, louder and more clearly than before. She peers over her reading glasses at the place where the twelve-year-olds have turned inwards, all of them staring at Jamie in horror. Jamie can barely stay upright on his trembling knees, rooted to the spot with his face as a white as a frozen corpse.

Claudette giggles in delight. “Are you just the cutest little thing? Come on up dearie, don’t be shy.”

Shy or now, Jamie comes, plucked from the crowd by Peacekeepers who flank him on the long trek to the stage. Time slows to an agonizing crawl. One of the eighteens shoves my shoulder because I’ve stopped breathing. When I start again it’s ragged, barely more than dry sobs.

How? How could it be him? I never even though to worry for him, the chances were so low. It’s his first year and he’s only ever had to take ones tesserae. His name was only in there twice!

In the dead silence of the crowd, I hear his mother muffling sobs into someone’s clothes. God, his mother. God, _Sophie_. Can she even understand what’s going on?

After what seems like an eternity, Jamie finally reaches the stage and is swept to the mike by Claudette. The wood gives a little beneath his feet and it hits me like a sandbag to the gut: he’s standing on the exact same spot where both our fathers died.

“Such an honor!” Claudette gushes into the mike, pulling Jamie against her until he cringes in discomfort and disgust. I want to scream at her, live TV or no. Honor? What honor? To die at twelve? What’s wrong with the Capitol that murder before puberty can be called an honor?

This is wrong. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s _wrong_.

“I can’t wait to get to know all about you, sweetie,” says Claudette, giving Jamie’s shoulder another fierce squeeze. “There’s just one last formality to clear up before we make it official: Do we have any volunteers?”

My hand shoots up before she’s even finished the sentence.

An instant later the reality of what I’ve done sinks in. Claudette wasn’t expecting an answer. No one ever answers. No matter how bad life gets in the District 10, no one would willingly throw it away for the Arena.

But it’s not for the Arena. It’s not for the Capitol. It’s for Jamie. He can’t go. I won’t let him.

I think I must have shouted something when I raised my hand, because now everyone is staring my way. Seconds tick by with even Claudette stunned into silence. I’m sure every camera in 23 is focused on me now.

I drop my hand and straighten up as best I can. This is my first impression for the Capitol types. They’ll want to see proof of my strength, evidence of my resolve and my will to live. With my eyes locked on Jamie, I lift my head and speak again, as loud and clear as I can muster.

“I volunteer as Tribute.”


	3. After and Goodbyes

I keep my senses on stage just long enough to see Jamie delivered safely to his mother’s arms. After that, the world dissolves into a blur of color and sound. Losing myself in this fog is the only reason I manage to keep it together under the glare of those cameras and the scrutiny of the Capitol, keeping the facts of what I’ve done at a safe distance so they’ll never show. 

I only allow the feelings to come after I’ve been taken into custody, locked away in the Justice Building with no crowds, no cameras, and only Peacekeepers standing guard out in the hall. Relief is the first thing to rush through me, so thick and strong that it leaves me winded. Safe. Jamie is safe. I’ve saved him. He’s alive.

I sink onto a plush black sofa – probably the nicest chair in Village 23 – and bury my face in trembling hands. Soon the tremors spread to my arms and legs, then to my lungs. Finally I’m shaking all over, fear, shock and sorrow threatening to swallow me and my flickers of relief whole.

Before I can drown, Mama arrives for our last goodbyes. I feel her before I see her, soft hands stroking my hair. She smiles when I glance up, her expression sad and old, much older than she’s ever seemed before. She doesn’t speak, only guides me down until I’m lying in her lap, her arms around me, cradling my head. Last night, I tried to convince her that I was a man. Now, I close my eyes and pretend, just for a moment, that this is a nightmare and I am a child come for comfort in the night.

After a while – I’m not sure how long, but it can’t be more than a few minutes – I manage to bring myself back under control, my fear kept in check and my anxiety buried. Mama kisses my forehead again and asks if I’m ready to see them. I am. I straighten my clothes while she goes for the door.

Jamie and Emma burst in, shouting my name. I sink from the couch to my knees, gathering both close to my chest. Their arms tangle together, wrapping tight around my shoulders and neck. I feel their hearts beating, hear them breathe.

Safe. They’re both safe. They’re alive.

“Jack,” Jamie sobs, his voice as wet as the tears soaking my shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

I shush him, giving them both a tight squeeze before pulling away to see their faces. They’re so similar now with their red eyes and shining cheeks that they almost look like twins. I cup Jamie’s face in my hands and lay our foreheads together so he has no choice but to look me in the eye.

“Don’t apologize. Not for this. This is not your fault.”

He doesn’t believe a word of it. Tears well in his eyes once more. My first instinct is to make him laugh, to crack a joke or start up a game, but I’m drawing a blank. There’s no time. I have to make sure they’ll be okay.

“Listen,” I tell them, putting a hand on each of their shoulders and dropping my voice to a whisper in case the Peacekeeper outside dares to listen in. “You guys can’t fall apart, okay? Winter will come whether I’m here or not and you’ve got to be ready. Jamie, you remember what we got this morning?”

He nods.

“Change of plans. Eat the rabbit tonight, it won’t keep, but jar the rest. Then keep it up. Emma, you’re going to have to start going out with him. Jamie will show you how to tie the snares. Keep up the traps, but focus on the berries, start building up a store. Make jams, jellies, preserves, whatever you can manage. Just make sure you’ve got at least one jar per person for each winter month ready to go before the freeze sets in. You get me?”

Jamie nods again, trying to say something, but he’s too choked up. Emma rubs her cheeks with her hands and manages to say, “We don’t have enough jars.”

“Then you’ll get some. Do odd jobs for the shopkeepers, ask for payment in glass. And you can trade my things –”

“No!” Emma shrieks, stomping her foot. “You’re going to need those when you come home!”

She could have kicked me in the gut and it wouldn’t hurt as much as this does. My chances of coming home are, generously speaking, slim to none. Luck can only get me so far. I’m not match for the Careers. I can’t hunt, only trap. And who knows what sort of awful things the Gamemakers have planned.

I swallow against a sandpaper-dry throat and force a weak smile. “Don’t be silly, Em. You’ve seen how it works on TV. I won’t need anything once I get to the Capitol. All my stuff here…that’s a gift, okay? To you guys. Put it to good use.”

She shakes her head, stubborn and furious. Jamie bites his lip and stares at the floor. At least he understands. I don’t own much – a few changes of clothes, some old toys, a decent cloak – but if they bargain well they can stretch it out to two or even three jars. Maybe even more; I’m sure the people of 10-23 will have sympathy for them.

Emma huffs to keep from sniffling again, clutching her hands close to her heart. For the first time I notice that she’s holding something there, a small bit of metal that’s just bright enough to catch the sunlight from the window.

“They let you take something in there, don’t they?” she asks. “Something from home.”

“A token. Yes.” I hadn’t even thought about it.

“Then here.”

She pushes the object into my chest and doesn’t let go until I’ve taken hold. The metal feels cold in spite of how she’d clutched it. It’s silver, real silver, not entirely pure but enough to be valuable, beaten and smoothed into a crescent moon with a snowflake nestled in its curve. If you flip the mechanism in the back, the snowflake comes out, revealing the object as a clasp for one’s cloak. 

I know this clasp. It belonged to Da before he died. He only wore it on special occasions, like his wedding and the winter solstice festivals. No matter how bad things got, he only ever gave it up the day before he died. 

Every beat my heart makes hearts. “Em…I can’t take this. This is the only thing you…”

“Take it,” she insists, shoving my hands back against my chest. “That way…That way I’ll know for sure that Daddy’s watching over you in there.”

She’ll never change her mind. I hold the clasp against my heart and pull her in again to nuzzle her hair. “Thank you.”

The door opens again without warning, barely missing my mother, who side-steps to get out of the way. The Peacekeeper steps in, his expression hard as stone. “Time’s up.”

As Jamie and Emma cling to me for one last hug, I’m struck by a final realization. This is goodbye. I will never see my family again, but they will see me. They’ll see me dolled up and paraded for the Captiol like one of Claudette’s dogs; see me fattened and trained to kill; see me hunted, beaten, and starved. Worst of all, they’ll see me die. They’ll watch my murder not just once but over and over again in clip shows and reruns and news bytes for the rest of their lives.

I can’t let that be the last they think of me. I can’t. I grasp Emma and Jamie’s shoulders before they can reluctantly pull away.

“Listen,” I tell them again, the words spilling out hurried and hushed in desperation. “Whatever you see on TV, whatever they show you, it’s not real. None of it is real, you hear me?”

Jamie and Emma exchange a worried glance. I must sound crazy. I squeeze their shoulders, trying to be reassuring rather than rambling nuts. “It’s not real,” I say again, fishing for the right words. “None of it is real, it’s only a…only a game. That’s all. Just a stupid game.”

Whether or not they truly understand, we are out of time. Before I can do anything more – tell them that I love them, say goodbye to my mother, anything – the Peacekeepers pulls them out of my grasp and through the door. It slams behind them, cutting me off from my old life once and for all.

In the silence that follows, my grief wells up until it threatens to swallow me again. I pull myself onto the couch and close my eyes, holding onto the memory of Emma’s hands and Mama’s smile, of Jamie beaming while he holds aloft a fresh-caught fish and of Sophie pulling on my cloak to ask for a ride. I cling to those memories and the bits of light they bring to my dark thoughts. Whatever happens, I can’t let fear win. If I freeze in the Arena, I’m dead. End of story.

I can’t let that happen. If I’m to die, it won’t be because of fear. I won’t let Jamie, Emma, and Sophie see that. If they have to watch it, I’ll make my death something worthy of memory. It will mean something beyond the Captiol’s games.

This I swear, in my silence and solitude, just before the Peacekeepers return to escort me out of the Justice Building and away from home in District 10 for the last time.

 

* * *

 

I’ve never seen the inside of a car before. I’d probably enjoy the experience more if I didn’t have to share it with Claudette and her yapping dog. She talks at me throughout the entire two-hour drive to the nearest train station in 10-18, going on and on about how thrilling it was when I volunteered and how wonderful things are going to be on the train and how she’s certain we’ll be the talk of the Capitol once we get there.

I tune her out ten minutes in and spend the entire time watching the landscape go by out the window. My mind drifts, wandering back to field trips we’d taken in school to visit ranches, farms, and processing plants throughout the District. It’s not uncommon for people to move from one town to another as demands are made, through it’s less common in 23 since we’re so specialized. As one of the three sheep towns, 18 is closer than most. It’s larger and more spacious, but also similar enough that I’m already homesick.

We linger among the shepherds only long enough to move from the sleek black Capitol car to the even sleeker silver train waiting at the station. From there it’s off to 10-1 in the heart of the District, where the mayor and all of our appointed officials are waiting to finish things off with a final ceremony.

My District partner, the strawberry blonde from 10-4, is named Solstice. She’s fourteen. She meets my eye only once, when we shake hands by order of the mayor. Before and after that, she stares pointedly at nothing, her face blank, refusing to either move or speak.

Once we’re back on the train and in route to the Capitol, she brushes off the escort’s attempts to woo us to the dinner table and disappears into her cabin, which suits me find. No point it getting to know a stranger who’ll only be after my blood in a week anyway.

I stay for the dinner – which is grander and richer than anything I’ve ever imagined, to the point that I nearly make myself sick – and linger for the small talk that follows, but not for long. I don’t need to stay more than a few minutes to discover that my mentors aren’t going to be a whole lot of help one-on-one. Of District 10’s three surviving Victors there are two males and one female. While the woman is cool and confident and seems more than capable of helping Solstice whether she wants in or not, both of the men are burly ranchers from the cattle towns. They’ve got no idea what to do with “scrawny goat-herding waif” like me. They offer a few passing suggestions and promise to do their best negotiating my sponsors, but I can see in their eyes that they’re already sizing me up for a coffin.

The only thing that really gets accomplished over dinner is watching the recap of the Reapings all across Panem. I try to pay attention – these people are my competition, after all – but all I can gather from the talking heads is that it seems there’s an unusual number of volunteers this year. The six Careers from Districts 1, 2, and 4 are no surprise, but there’s a tiny boy with a warm smile from District 5 and a wiry, dark-skinned young man from District 7. And me, bringing the final total of volunteers up to 9.

The heads are absolutely giddy. Finally, they say, the outlying Districts are getting into the spirit of the Games. It makes me so sick I don’t bother sticking around for desert.

That night I dream of the trap door falling from under Jamie’s feet before I can get him off the stage. His body jerks without a rope and makes the same noise as my father’s. I wake with only my empty cabin and the moonless night around to hear my scream.

 

* * *

 

We arrive at the Capitol the next morning while breakfast is still on the table. Solstice made an appearance for the meal and, at the insistence of her mentor, we take up a place at the window as the train appears from the tunnel. Even this early, the streets alongside the train tracks are bustling with people eager to catch a first glimpse of this year’s Tributes. 

When they spot us in the window, they start pointing and shouting, some waving as though to welcome us in. Solstice goes stone-faced, gripping the handrail beneath the sill until her knuckles turn white. I can’t say that I blame her. Every person in that crowd is just as eager to see us dead as alive. And yet I find myself smiling, one hand resting against the glass to reach out not for any of the adults but to the cheering children scattered throughout the crowd. I guess it’s just nice to know that somewhere in Panem kids can grow up happy. 

From the station, we’re spirited into the remake center and separated. I’m delivered to the waiting arms of three nearly identical giggling women in green who declare themselves my prep team. They’ve got names, but I lose track of them almost instantly, distracted by the fact that as they’re introducing themselves they are also stripping off my clothes.

I manage to keep Da’s clasp, which is set aside for future use, but everything else is quickly tossed out and I’m left naked as the day I was born. The team promptly deposits me into a deep basin filled with water that’s about fifty degrees warmer than I’m used to and an odd pink color that I don’t entirely trust. For the next several hours I am bathed, scrubbed, moisturized, bathed again, scoured, showered, soaked, and finally submerged in a bizarre green foam that smells like pine needles for so long that I start to forget the difference between up and down.

All this, the team explains while they’re rinsing off the foam, is to get the smell of goat out of my skin along with the accumulated dirt and grime accumulated through a lifetime of bathing only in the river on certain days. And this is only the first step in my remaking. My hair is washed, combed, and trimmed. My nails are buffed, shaped, and shined. They take razors to patches of hair I never thought to touch, stripping it from my arms, my chest, my stomach, my legs. My teeth earn special attention, shined to a gleaming pearl white as the prep team squeals.

“I’ve never seen such a perfect set out of the Districts!” one of them declares, holding my jaw open with one hand to reach ever last molar. “You must have taken such good care of them. It’s so nice to know that someone out there _cares_.”

In District 10, we care about our teeth only out of knowledge that losing them to disease spells an early death. But the girl is so damn sweet about it that I can’t bring myself to correct her even after I’m able to speak.

After who knows how long, my remodeling is finally complete. The prep team flitters away to summon my stylist, leaving me in nothing but a pair of gray boxers tight that don’t leave anything to imagination. I sit on the prep table, turning Da’s clasp – which has been polished to a gleaming shine – over in a hand that feels completely alien, trying not to think about what ridiculous cowboy get-up I’m doomed to wear in the opening parade.

The quiet click of high heels in the hall announced Psyche Le’Amore’s appearance before she steps through the door. She’s quite distinctive, with those mounds of neon pink curls falling to her waist and her left side covered in spiraling pink-and-silver tattoos with hearts nestled in their curves.

Psyche and her husband, Cupid, are a bit of a double-act, as far as stylists go. They’re young-ish and mostly unproven, having taken over once the pair who clothed our last Victor were finally allowed to move up to a more desirable District. For as long as I can remember they’ve coordinated with the best of them, occasionally trying some new coloring or bauble but never breaking their Tributes completely out of the box. In interviews, they’re often fond of pointing out that there’s “Only so much you can do with pigs and cows, you know!"

She beams at me, showing off her own set of perfectly white teeth before diving in to peck me on both cheeks. “Hello Jack. So wonderful to finally meet you! It’s only been a day but I feel like I’ve be waiting _forever_ for you to get here. Now, let’s have a look at you." 

She rounds me several times like a hawk, circling first one way then the other to take in every detail. Her in-long painted nails rake through my hair and trace the contours of my shoulders, chest, back and arms. All along the way she keeps up a running commentary, more to herself than to me, quick and high in that Capitol accent without a single pause between her thoughts.

“Oh but you are gorgeous, aren’t you? I knew you’d clean up lovely. Really, it’s a crime to cover up that beautiful pale skin with _dirt_. Nice strong legs, too, and decent arms. You’re a bit scrawny at the moment, no doubt underfed you poor dear but we’ll take care of that soon enough. And this…!”

A hand lands on my butt so suddenly that I yelp in surprise, which isn’t very dignified. Psyche titters a bright laugh and gives me a pat before returning my personal space. “Very nice, very nice indeed. By the time my darling and I are done with you, you’ll break the heart of every girl in the Capitol.”

She’s interrupted by a knock on the door. I almost expect her to be angry, but if anything her smile grows wider. “But first, lunch. Here you are dear, put this on.”

She passes me the cloth that had been folded over her arm, which turns out to be a robe. Once I’m decent, she leads me out to an adjoining sitting room, where a two-person table of food has been laid by a man in red robes. All over again I realize how hungry I am and tuck in, which Psyche finds adorable if her laugh is any indication. She seems content to watch me eat. When she does speak again, she picks up Da’s clasp from where it had been lying next to my drink. “Is this your token, then?”

Through a mouth of meat and pasta, I manage a quiet, “Yes.” Then, because I want someone to know what it means, I add, “It was my father’s. He’s dead now.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says softly. For all her fluttering and Capitol affectations, I can’t help but think that she means it.

She sets it back down and daintily pats her mouth with her napkin before leaning towards me over the table. “Forgive me, I’m sure you’re eager to find out what we’re cooking up for your big debut.”

I shrug. It’s hard to get excited over getting dressed the way Capitol folks think a ranch hand looks and prancing through the city streets pretending to like people.

“Well first I have to tell you, my darling and I were absolutely _inspired_ when we saw you step up on that stage. No one ever imagined we’d see another volunteer from District 10. And there’s so many of you this year, it’s all the analysts have been talking about. Even better, they’re finally giving some attention to that beautiful little village you come from.”

She sighs, fluttering eyelids painted thick to match her hair. “You can’t imagine how hard it is to make people understand that District 10 isn’t just about cows and pigs and the things that meat comes from! Every year we get stuck with the same old drab things because it’s what people are expecting. But now we’ve got you, dearie, and everyone knows about your goats and your time in the mountains and it’s just the most wonderful opportunity. And then there’s the good luck of your name matching a perfect theme with Miss Solstice and…”

“Wait.” I hold my hand to stop her, trying to unravel her logic. “What do you mean our names have a ‘theme’?”

She blinks, cocking her head to one side like a bird curious of its own reflection. “Well, a solstice is…”

“I know what the solstice is.”

“Then you understand,” Psyche says, nodding as though her words make any sort of sense. “With a name like that you get an easy choice between summer and winter, but she’s definitely a summer, what that lovely hair. And then there’s you – Jack Frost, the mountain boy, from the land of ice and snow! It’s the perfect dichotomy, and we intend to milk it for all it’s worth.”

She slides her chair around the table and cups one of my hands in both of hers, gently massaging my knuckles as she continues on. “You see dear, the Tribute Parade is all about first impressions. All the best sponsors will be in the crowd, searching for that special tribute to throw their lot in with, and if we want it to be you then we have to make sure that you’re remembered. My darling and I intend to do just that, and this is the best opportunity we’ve had in ages. I promise, we’ll do everything in our power to win favor and bring you safely home. But I can only do that if you’ll trust me.”

She taps my nose, sparing the cute giggle this time for an honest smile. Whatever Psyche’s background, whatever she thinks she is and whatever she thinks I am, she honestly wants to help me. I can tell the promise is not made likely. After a moment’s hesitation, I nod my assent and her smile widens to an all-out beam.

“Wonderful. Now tell me dearie…how do you feel about dying your hair?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone's worried -- I don't do the whole pairing-an-OC-up-with-a-canon-character thing, so while Solstice and Psyche have some deliberate bearing on the plot they're not there to derail things or take focus away from what's important, ie Jack and the Guardians. On that note, I finally managed to work a hint of the other guardians in this chapter! Two of them anyway. It's a bit blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but hopefully by the next chapter everything will be a little more obvious. Hope to see you then. ^_^


	4. The Tribute Parade

By the time Psyche’s done with me, I barely recognize myself. By “dying my hair,” she apparently meant striping the color completely out of it, leaving the tips transparent and the rest pure white. Only my roots are still their natural brown, bled over it like frost-covered leaves, “So they’ll still know it’s you once it starts growing out in the Arena.” 

And then there’s the clothes! I’ve never worn anything quite like it. Psyche wasn’t kidding when she said they used my village for inspiration. All the pieces – the linen shirt with its flowing sleeves, the long cloak and matching blue vest, even the soft leather boots – could have come from home, only no one in 23 could ever hope dress this rich. The shirt’s a pale blue, much paler than berry juice could dye, and both the vest and cloak are embroidered with a nearly transparent white-silver thread that’s only visible under certain lights.

Psyche’s absolutely delighted with the results. She declares to everyone who will listen that I look exactly like a prince. Standing in our chariot before the Parade, surrounded by tributes and stylists and my own reflection from a dozen angles, I understand what she’s talking about for the first time.

“You’re not going to preen like that the entire time we’re up here, are you?”

Solstice’s voice brings me back down to earth. I drag my eyes from the nearest mirror and try to laugh it off, scratching the back of my neck where it still itches from the bleach. “Sorry. I won’t. It’s just weird, you know? I don’t look like myself.”

She scowls, though her glittering green lipstick somewhat diminishes the desired effect. “Just be happy we didn’t get Seven’s stylist. Or Twelve’s. Two words: body paint. They’re practically naked.”

“Seriously?”

I crane up on my toes to catch a glimpse. Three chariots ahead, District Seven is indeed showing a lot of skin, with the girl nothing but a skirt and bra while the boy gets only pants. There’s a few bunches of green leaves here and there, but most of the focus lies squarely on their limbs and torsos, where tanned skin shines under long strokes of color. The patterns they weave are primal and bold. From a distance, they look almost like leaves. At least, the girl’s do.

  
“Huh,” I say, settling back onto my heels. “Wonder why they went with blue.”

Solstice’s scowl deepens, twisting her green lips even more. “What?”

“The guy from Seven. All of his paint’s in blue and gray. The green I get, goes with the lumber and trees thing, but why the blue?”

“Who knows. Who cares?” Solstice rolls her eyes. “This place is full of idiots. They probably think blue trees are where blueberries come from. Or maybe blue leaves are the big new fad in horticulture.”

Unless she turned into a complete chatterbox with her team, I’m pretty sure this is the most that Solstice has said since she got Reaped and I can see why she was holding back. Condescension drips like acid from her every word, telegraphing unmitigated hatred for the Capitol and all its citizens. It’s not just that she blames them for what’s happened to us. She despises every individual resident with a deep and personal fury.

This doesn’t seem like a healthy mindset when we’re about to ride into the Capitol streets and try to win the hearts of its populace with nothing but charm and some fancy clothes. Luckily, Psyche turns up at that moment to change the subject, arm-in-arm with Cupid, her husband and business partner. As usual they’re a matching set this year, she in pink and he in blue, his with only the left sleeve while hers has only the right. The tattoos on their bare arms match up perfectly. It’s so frivolously lovey-dovey that it makes me ill.

“Finishing touches!” Cupid announces with an excited trill, thrusting what appears to be a live chicken into Solstice’s arms. Its feathers are the same shade of bronze as all her accessories and it’s wearing a tiny green collar to match everything else in her dress and shawl.

For me, Psyche’s brought a shepherd’s crook covered completely in beaten silver. It’s cold, but no heavier than the one I carried at home while tending the herd.

The stylists squeal in one voice and immediately start to congratulate each other on a job well done. My gaze slides from the staff to the animal in Solstice’s hands. “…Is that a real chicken?”

“Of course not,” she snaps like I’ve asked the stupidest question in the world. With a huff, she jerks away. The chicken squawks in surprise and her face softens. She sighs and scratches the thing on the head. “It’s a muttation. They’re designed to be quiet, housebroken, and predisposed to being held. There are twits up here who think they make good pets.”

I have to admit, I’m a little impressed that she can tell that just by holding it. I’ve never even seen a chicken, so I wouldn’t know the first thing about them. But then again, her home town of 10-4 is the largest of the poultry farms. She’s probably been handling birds like that since she was a kid.

I turn the staff in my hand, feeling the uneven metal against my palm. “Guess I should be glad they didn’t get me a goat then.”

Solstice actually smiles. It’s softer and prettier than I expected from her. “No,” she says, her voice gentle to match. “They made the right choice, for you You’ve got a unique look – very striking. The crowd will remember you for sure.”

Remember me, she says. Not her. Not us. Just me.

Before I can ask what she means, the opening music swells, broadcasted all around the Capitol. The pair from District One – powerful Careers wrapped in layers of luxurious fur – roll up to and through the doors, out into the streets. Psyche and Cupid hurry to pose us on our chariot, shoulder to shoulder with heads held high. Then, in what seems like an instant, we’re through the doors and out onto the streets of the Capitol.

Between the cheers and the music, the crowd is deafening. We drown in colors and sound, darting through night streets lit as bright as day, our cloaks fluttering behind us in a wave of blue and green. I catch a glimpse on one of the overhead screens. The shock of what I see winds me like a blow to the gut.

Psyche was right about the hair. It shimmers in the bright lights of the city streets, striking and bold. The spotlights also catch the clear thread of my vest and cape, sparkling cool and bright like frost on the frozen river. It’s a perfect match for the silver on the staff, which in turn matches Da’s clasp against my neck. Beside me, the bronze stitching in Solstice’s corset and cloak have the same effect, shining bright and warm. Even her chicken seems to shine, its feather-tips glistening with bronze.

We are summer and winter. Warmth and frost. Moonlight and sunshine. The one who carries the animals and the one who guides them.

I turn my eyes to the crowd and happen to catch the gaze of a young woman, clustered on the sidelines with her friends. She lets out a shriek of delight and actually faints, her entourage descending to catch her with a chorus of excited squeals. My head starts spinning. All this excitement, over me?

By the time we get to the City Circle I’m out of breath, thankful for the staff if only because it keeps me upright. I’ve never seen so many real live people clustered in one place. To think that they’re all here to see me, judge me, cheer me on or tear me down, and more, that any one of them could one day chose to save my life or let me die…It’s too much.

One by one our chariots circle around and come to a stop in front of the President’s mansion. A small man with paper-white hair – the President himself, the actual President of Panem! – steps out on a balcony to address the crowd, but for all I can understand him I might as well be under water. My vision swims. I have to look at something else or I’m liable to pass out right here in front of everybody.

My eyes lock the screens overhead, watching them flicker through each of the Tribute pairs. At first it goes in District order counting down from one, but then it starts to shift around, giving more time to the costumes that earned the most buzz on Capitol feeds.

There’s District Seven, with their body paint, and District Eight, buried in coats of quilt. District Twelve – are they _completely_ naked? And covered in coal dust, yuck – is probably getting laughed at, along with District Five, who’ve been spray-painted gold. Their crowns are probably meant to give off electric sparks, but all they do is make their hair stand on end. Still, their little round Boy is smiling broadly and even waves at the camera, which might help for all I know.

To my relief, District Ten gets a fair amount of coverage, with some particularly complementary focus on the chicken and my hair. But by the time the national anthem starts to play, it’s clear who the real winner is.

District Two.

Two is the masonry district, officially. That explains the color choice of black and gray, their skin ashen and their eyes rimmed with gold. But the design is pure homage to what everyone knows to be their true export: Peacekeepers. The dark colors make the already striking suits even more intimidating. On most kids it would look ridiculous, but on the District Two Careers – especially their tall, broad-shouldered male – it’s scary.

I get a good glimpse of him once we’ve all been herded into the Training Center, where our prep teams and escorts are waiting. The boy from District 2 isn’t built like a normal Career. Instead of bulging muscles, he’s lean. But there’s power there, wrapped up in restraint and control, like a snake curled in the grass and ready to strike.

His escort calls him ‘Pitch.’ The name rings a bell, dislodging a memory of the Reaping recap from last night. Pitch Black, from District 2. A name that ominous fits him like a glove.

Then Psyche appears with Cupid in tow, both chattering with excitement as they pull Solstice and I down from our chariot. They sweep us to the doors of crystal elevators, which are already crowded with Tributes and their teams waiting for the ride up to our luxurious holding cells high in the tower. All of the Capitol residents and Mentors talk and laugh and congratulate themselves for a job well done, but most of the Tributes are silent, nervous, and pointedly avoiding each other’s eye.

I try to follow suit and get lost in the crowd, but before I can someone crashes into us from behind and the crowd pushes back in response, knocking me off-balance. I stumble, trying to right myself with the staff, and bounce off someone’s escort. Then someone else shoves me, and the next thing I know my shoulder’s been seized by broad hand, hauling me back off my feet like a sack of potatoes.

By the time I’ve got my footing again, the doors to the crystal elevator have already closed. A second later we’re rising into the air, leaving the rest of the Tributes and my prep team behind.

A deep voice laughs from the space right behind me. “Ah, there you are Jack Frost,” it says, sounding almost friendly.

The male Tribute from District One turns me around to face him. I know he must be eighteen – Careers always are – but the lucky bastard must have matured early to boot, as his smile is framed by a trimmed moustache and matching goatee. To reflect his District’s production of luxury goods he’s clothed from head to toe in rich red cloth lined with black fur, making him look more like a bear than a boy.

He peers at me with bright eyes, a friendly grin still firmly in place. “That is your name, isn’t it? Jack Frost?”

“Uh. Yeah.” I back off, pulling the staff across me instinctively for defense. We’re alone in the elevator, just the two of us. There’s no sign of his prep team, escort, or District partner. He clearly wanted to get to me on my own. But why? If he kills me before the Games even start they’ll have him shot in the streets.

“Excellent. Wonderful to make your acquaintance. Please, feel free to call me North, most everyone does.” He eyes the row of buttons along the wall behind me, only one of which – two from the top, baring the number ten – is lit. We’re already well past his floor. What is he waiting for?

North nods thoughtfully, finding whatever answers he wanted in the rising lights. “We do not have much time to talk like this,” he says, “so you will excuse me if I get down to tacks of brass.

Tomorrow we begin our training. I should like you to join me once the initial lessons are complete.”

I’m so hung up on the bit about ‘tacks of brass’ – seriously, is that some weird saying from One? – that the implications of his statement fly right over my head, only to double back and hit me straight in the gut. An alliance. He’s scouting me for an alliance. Before I can stop myself, I bark out a laugh.

North raises a dark eyebrow, his lip curling up in amusement. “You find this funny?”

Funny? No. More like completely ridiculous. This has got to be some sort of trick. I’m no Career, he’s never seen me run or fight or even move across a room. The most I’ve done since getting here is let a hyperactive hairstylist bleach my hair. There is no way I should have caught the eye of a Career.

But I also don’t want to piss off said Career, since he’s bound to be one of the most dangerous combatants in the Arena. So I cover up the laugh with a cough and sputter the first thing that comes to mind.

“Uh, yeah? Wasn’t exactly expecting this before a good night’s sleep is all. Aren’t you supposed to send mentors to arrange stuff like this?”

It’s not like District One’s short on them, either. They’ve had a dozen Victors over the years and most are still alive.

North scoffs, waving a broad hand. “Mentors, bah. That is no way to begin an alliance. These are matters of life and death, _our_ life and death, Jack. Much better to do it in person and away from prying eyes.”

Again, his bright blue eyes slide away from me, peering down through the crystal at the crowd we left behind. They’re barely visible now, a dozen stories below. But I get the feeling, from the way he sets his jaw, that they’re not the prying eyes North is worried over.

The elevator slides to a smooth stop at my floor, sounding our arrival with the ring of a bell. The doors open and North clasps me again on the shoulder. “You must think about it. I understand. We will see you in the morning, Jack. You can give us your answer then.”

We. Us. Who is he talking about? The other Careers? Pitch Black, the girls from both Districts, the pair from Four, have they already talked this over? When did they have the time?

I stumble out onto my floor, catching my balance with the staff before I face-plant into the marble. The doors close behind me and I get one last glimpse of North, waving and grinning at me through the crystal before he drops out of sight and disappears again.

What’s left of my lunch threatens to rise back up through my throat. That actually just happened. I actually got offered to make an alliance with the Careers. The Careers! Blood-thirsty killers raised to indulge the Capitol’s every whim, instructed to make each successive Games deadlier and bloodier, trained to slaughter children without regret and curry favor for themselves and their Districts. If I joined them, it might save my life, but District Ten would never forgive me.

The rest of my team appears a moment later, with Psyche baffled but delighted that I made it up on my own. Solstice glares like she can see right into my soul and knows what I’ve been offered. Taking them up on it would mean abandoning her, too. I don’t know her and I shouldn’t care, but for goodness sake, at least she’s from something like home.

I avoid Solstice’s eye and slip away the first chance I get to change into more normal clothes. North, if that’s really his name, was wrong about one thing. I don’t need to think. I already know what my answer will be.

If I’m given a choice between dying and joining the Careers, I’ll take death every time. 


	5. Training and Tributes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May have rushed the pacing on this chapter a bit, but to be honest I think it works. Plus I’m eager to get into the arena, which is just one or two chapters away. On the bright side: I finally got all the Guardians on the page in a way that’s totally obvious who’s who! Yes! (fistpump)

“Oomph!" 

Without warning, the climbing net lurches under my weight and turns all the way over, dumping me onto the floor. I don’t know what stings more, my shoulder or my pride. From the sidelines, the Tributes from District 4 are snickering over my poor performance. It’s my second go at the obstacle course and I can’t even get past the first stage.

The first morning of training is dedicated to the “compulsory exercises,” basic training stations designed to let the Gamemakers judge our comparative intelligence, athleticism, fighting prowess, and survival skills. This obstacle course is the second of four. It’s not a hard run, certainly no harder than outrunning a stray billy on a run-down trail. But for some reason, I keep falling, or tripping, or otherwise messing up before I can get through.

I only figure out why when I try to roll to my feet and nearly turn my ankle on the slick mat. It’s the shoes. I’ve gone without them for so long that I don’t know how to move in them anymore. Last night, all I had to do was stand still, so I didn’t notice so much. But today, these weird cloth-and-plastic things feel like tying bags to a barn-cat’s feet. I can walk, I can stand, but I sure as hell can’t run.

Atala, the woman who runs the training, claps her hands to get my attention. “C’mon Ten, get up. You get one more shot.”

“Give me a second.” I yank at the laces, which stretch strangely like there’s rubber in the cords. It takes a bit, but I get the knots untied and kick off the shoes. The socks follow shortly thereafter.

This time, there’s no problem rolling to my feet. The rubber floors and plastic safety mats feet weird against my soles. They’re thicker and softer than I imagined. No wonder I couldn’t balance right.

There’s some muttering from my fellow Tributes as I round back to the starting position. I block them out, but I can’t avoid the glimpse of Pitch Black smirking silently with his long arms folded across his chest. He’s sizing me up like a piece of meat. In the artificial light his eyes glint gold. It gives me the creeps. Against every instinct, I turn my back on him at the starting line, forcing my focus back to the obstacles.

Atala blares her whistle and I’m off like a shot. This time there’s no hesitation, no loss of balance, and I’m faster than ever to boot. In seconds, I’m over and past the net, swinging between high stations, and dodging rubber balls fired from the walls. It’s like being back in a midwinter snowball fight, rushing for cover with no ammo and the upper-year kids bearing down.

By the time I’m through, I clock in among the top ten, with only the six Careers and the boy from District Seven ahead of me. From the sidelines, Pitch Black shrugs it off and drifts away with his district partner, completely uninterested in the sad performances from Eleven and Twelve. Meanwhile, North gives me a hearty laugh and a thumbs-up.

“Good show Jack!” he booms. “Well done, well done indeed.”

I turn my back on him fast before my face contorts into something I’ll regret. Whatever alliance he’s trying to forge, I’m not buying in, but if I step on the wrong toes in the next three days it could swing completely around until the Careers decide I’m worth hunting down and dealing with personally. Better to keep my head down, stay low, average, and under the radar.

We’re not allowed to fight each other during training. Still, I’m not about to let North catch me alone again. When I hear his heavy, solid footsteps coming towards me from behind I slip away and don’t glance back until I’ve tucked myself into the line for the next compulsory behind Solstice and the girl from Nine.

North, thankfully, seems to get the hint. He frowns in that trimmed frame of black and folds his strong arms over his chest. His left hand taps an exposed stretch of his right wrist, where a three-inch-thick cuff of intricate tattoos mars the skin. They’re District tattoos, a rare luxury for those few lucky enough to hold positions of favor with the Capitol. They are roughly carved, plain in color, painful to acquire, and utterly permanent, the complete antithesis of the delicate skin-work found in the Capitol.

North’s are black, like charcoal on birch bark, made of interlocking squares and geometric shapes like a quilt. From this distance, I catch only the barest glimpse of what each square shows. There is a sword. A gemstone. And a crescent moon.

Is he threatening me? I yank my eyes away, heart pounding in my ears. Don’t think about it. The tattoos could mean nothing, they could just be a way to show off to his fellow Careers. Or they could detail the story of his first kill. Not being from District One, there’s no way for me to know.

So much for rejecting without offending him. Oh well. I made my decision and I’m going to stick with it. We’ll see what happens in the Arena. Then we’ll know.

Just three days to go.

* * *

 

Tribute training, as it turns out, is not all about fighting and battle. There’s survival stations too, full of the little details that keep a Tribute alive in the wild long enough to kill or be killed. There’re lessons on climbing, building fires, camouflage, making traps and snares, anything that might give us an edge. 

I decide to stick with these stations rather than any of the weapons after watching the girl from District 6 nearly cut off her own leg trying to wield a heavy sword. She’s older than me by a year and taller by half a foot. If she can barely lift them, I’m not going to have a chance. The closest thing I’ve ever held to a weapon is a crook, and by design you’re not going to kill anybody with that. It’s pretty much useless for anything besides herding rams into line.

So, survival it is. I spend a good hour with the guy at the snares and traps station working out the best ways to make my old traps without a rope. Would that I could send the info back home to Jamie, it’d take half the risk out of our daily hunting runs. Then I move to shelter-building, then identifying edible plants, then to making a fire, and so on throughout the first morning and again after lunch, all while the Gamemakers watch from the grandstands and nibble on their mountains of food.

At the knot-tying station, I meet the boy from District Eight who, at barely twelve years old, is probably the youngest and smallest of us all. I remember him from the parade because his coat – heavily quilted from two or three dozen different fabrics to represent the textile mills – was oversized and overstuffed in an attempt from his stylist to make him look big and intimidating. It didn’t work. He wound up looking like a stuffed toy. Now, he just seems tiny, shaking in his seat like a kitten in the rain. The instructor is gentle with him, still his fingers tremble so fiercely that he struggles with every knot.

The prominence of his joints, bulbous along the sticks of his arms, make my heart hurt. They remind me of Emma and Jamie during that first hard winter, when there was barely enough food for our mothers, let alone three growing kids. Things must be bad in District Eight this year, the kid can’t weigh more than eighty pounds. Can his stomach even handle the rich Capitol food?

When I sit down next to him, he shies away, eyes darting from me to the simple knot he’s struggling to tie. His fingers are covered in tiny red marks – pin-pricks from his work back home. By the time I move on from the three basic knots I hadn’t learned on my own and have moved on to the more advanced levels, the District Eight boy finally manages to get a hang on a square. It drops from his hands to the table, where he lets it stay, staring with all his might like it’s the only thing keeping him from bursting into tears.

With a glance towards the Gamemakers – who are preoccupied watching Pitch Black fire volleys of arrows into perfect bulls-eyes on the heads and chests of a dozen targets – I swipe a handful of ropes from the table and start knotting them together. A loop here, a twist there, fold, wrap, tie…I don’t have time for the sort of complicated braids and loops I used to make Emma’s toys in the winter, but the end result is the same: a vaguely humanoid figure formed entirely out of rope.

Though the boy from District Eight still hasn’t looked up, the instructor seems interested in what I’m doing and passes me a few lengths of thin twine that’s almost invisible. I loop one around each finger of my right hand and attach the other ends to the doll’s arms, neck, and torso, turning it into a puppet. When I drop it between the District Eight boy and his knot, he lets out a squeak of surprise.

“Why _hello_ ,” I say, in my best Capitol accent, all stretched vowels and silly little inflections like they’re trying to sing every word they say. With a twitch of my hand the puppet bows dramatically, its arms flailing. “Such a pleasure to meet you good sir, such a pleasure, oh but don’t bother telling me your name I won’t remember it anyway….ooh, look, fresh meat!”

The puppet bobs over to the fallen knot and drops in head first, while I make gnawing noises like a goat chewing its way through slop. The District Eight boy giggles, cupping his hands over his mouth. His eyes glance up to the Gamemakers. There’s one particularly rotund fellow who hasn’t left the buffet table since he arrived and the way he hunches over the troth of stewed venison is even more reminiscent of the puppet than I intended.

I glance at the instructor, in case I’m going to get us in trouble, but he seems as amused as I am. My fellow tribute’s hands have stopped trembling, the shaking moving up to his shoulders as the giggles start to die down. I scan the room for another target. Time to take the piss out of our competition. The District Seven boy stands in line not too far away, all grumpy scowls and sullen stances. Perfect. I cross the puppet’s arms and grumble like an angry rabbit in a trap. The boy from District Eight laughs out loud.

“There now. That’s more like it.” I bring the puppet around on its strings, lifting it up and depositing it into his hands. “Getting all dark and gloomy isn’t going to help anything. Gotta smile while you can.”

Said smile lingers on the boy’s face as he turns the doll over in his hands, as though he’s not willing to put it down. He looks like he’s about to say something more, but before he can a shadows falls across the station, drawing our attention up to the ceiling.

There’s a girl up there, tanned and delicate, dangling from a long climbing rope that stretch all the way to the floor. At that station, once you get to the top, you’re supposed to keep climbing, using a web of straps and loops to keep yourself in the air. It’s dangerous and only available to those who can prove their skills on the lower climbing levels. What this girl is so far outside the regulations that it works the instructors into a panic. They start shouting at her, which instantly draws the Gamemakers’ attention – no doubt, exactly as planned.

A few feet short of the roof, she’s started rocking back and forth, swinging the rope in wide arcs. She sails with it easily, with only her hands and feet keeping her from plummeting twenty feet straight to the floor. Loose hair, fallen free from the dark bun at the base of her skull, flies around her face with a primal intensity. She frees one hand and blows a kiss to the Gamemakers as she swings past, never faltering in her circular flight. Then she stretches her arms like wings and smiles from ear to ear.

It’s her number, the plain numeral “1” on her back, which sparks a bit of recognition in my mind. This girl is named Iana Tooth. She is North’s District partner and fellow Career.

What the hell do they teach them in that academy that lets them pull of tricks like that?

“Wow,” whispers the boy from District Eight, who I’d almost forgotten was still beside me. “She’s beautiful.”

She sure is. Beautiful, dangerous, and sharp as a blade. Two hours ago she dominated the knife-throwing station with a deadly dance of gleaming silver. The Gamemakers must have taken note of her then, must be connecting the dots between the two displays. She’s not only deadly, but capable of the most spectacular shows. Prime Victor material for sure.

I force my eyes to pull away and return my attention to the knots, trying to ignore the commotion as Tooth’s show wraps up and she finally descends to the great relief of the climbing instructor. It’s all too easy to imagine the shows that the likes of Iana Tooth, North, and Pitch Black are planning for the solo-session displays at the end of the week. And what do I have? Nothing. You can’t show off luck on demand.

It doesn’t matter, I try to tell myself, staying calm for the sake of the District Eight boy, who is once again glancing my way. All I have to do is the best I can. No one factor decides the Games. Just cover all the bases I can and everything will turn out.

* * *

 

That night, I dream of Jamie, Sophie, and Emma as thin and starved as the boy from District Eight. They’re dancing at the victory tour for the winner of the games, who isn’t me, and with every move their swollen joints snap like a neck at the end of a noose. 

I wake up gagging on my own and spend the first half-hour of the morning dry-heaving into sink. Still, when breakfast comes around, I force myself to eat as much as I can hold. Those few extra pounds could make all the difference in the Arena.

The second day of training goes much like the first, though more of the non-Careers have started drifting to the survival stations, frightened off by the displays of dominance from the day before. When lunch rolls around we retreat to the separate room just off the gymnasium, where a dozen carts full of food are waiting. North catches my eye but, thankfully, doesn’t try to call me over to sit with him and Tooth like he did the day before. Weirdly, they don’t sit with Pitch and the other three Careers, but I’m still not interested in joining their little gang.

Most of us normal Tributes eat alone, including Solstice, who continues her campaign of not talking to me unless she absolutely has to. And that’s fine. I’m more than willing to keep to myself after turning down North’s plan, but someone – the volunteer boy from District Five – has other plans.

He appears apparently from nowhere, hopping into the chair beside me without either a word or a sound. A warm smile stretches across his round, bright face. Everything about him is round, making me wonder if he’s not from one of the more prominent families in District Five, like the merchants and shopkeepers who serve capitol workers in 10-1. I know he’s older than the boy from Eight, but he’s shorter by far and the only one besides the Careers who actually looks well-fed. His hair’s a sandy blonde and sticks up in all directions even without the ridiculous crown from the Parade.

When he finally gets me to look up he doesn’t say anything, just waves. I blink at him, not exactly sure how to respond. “…Hi?”

He settles in the chair beside me, dragging something out from under his tray of food. It looks like a small window pulled off the walls of a house, maybe twelve by ten inches, but instead of one clear pane it has two, and the inside is filled with golden sand. When he runs his fingers across the glass the sand moves, parting under his touch to leave lines like pen-strokes on a page. It must be magnetic or something. He makes a quick sketch of a circle and a few knotted crosses, then pushes it over so I can see. It takes me a moment to figure out that the shapes are supposed to be a set of jacks.

The whole thing is so ridiculous that I can’t help a bit of a laugh. “Yeah, that’s me. Jack Frost. What do they call you?”

The Boy from Five shrugs and runs a hand over his window, clearing the picture away. Then he taps the glass with one finger, stirring up a bit of the sand.

“Sandy?” I guess. He nods. I’m pretty sure that’s not his real name, but I can’t for the life of me remember what is. “Do they call you that because of this?”

Another nod.

“Well that’s kind of mean.”

Sandy laughs, but even that is silent, more physical than anything else, locked in shaking shoulders and a nodding head. He’s as silent as the Avox servants that attend to our needs in the apartments. That thought sends a shudder right down my spine.

“Hey, you’re not a…you know. Are you?” I swipe a finger over my vocal cords, hoping he’ll get the drift. He does and shakes his head, his smile fading to the slightest frowns. “Then how?”

Sandy sketches a frowning face, eyes closed with a thermometer sticking from its mouth.

“You got sick,” I translate.

He nods.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Sandy waves off the concerns. It was a long time ago, I suppose. Long enough that he’s gotten used to it, as tricky as it must be. I’d bet the sand-in-the-glass is something he only recently got from the Capitol, as a way to facilitate interviews, but just the fact that he’s managed to survive such a brutal illness and thrive without a major sense is impressive. His family back home must be pretty important, maybe even the Mayor of District Five. So why would he volunteer to carted off here, to almost certain death?

That doesn’t seem like a topic to broach over lunch so, once Sandy makes it clear that he doesn’t intend to leave, our conversation – if you can call it that – turns to what we might do for our individual sessions with the judges tomorrow afternoon. I’m relieved to hear that Sandy’s in the same boat as me, lots of general skills but nothing that could be shown off as a definite reason to score us high. He seems to do well at the camouflage station though and smiles when I suggest he paint himself into a wall, so maybe there’s hope for him yet.

“What about me?” I translate for his next question, before shrugging in response. “Gosh, I dunno Sandy. I’m pretty sure I’m screwed.”

Sandy pouts and wags an admonishing finger, shaking his head in disapproval. Surely, his body language says, there must be _something_.

“Not really. I’m pretty good at chasing down goats, but there’s no rocks in the gym, no wandering rams to catch, and somehow I don’t think they’re going to be too impressed with me jumping on a lot of equipment.”

Sandy taps his lips with a thoughtful finger, then claps his hands together once as though to exclaim, ‘I’ve got it!’ He takes the empty glass from my tray and adds it to his own, laying a butter knife across them both. Then he draws a stick-figure in his sand and sets it so it looks like the little man is walking across the thin beam.

A balancing act? Huh. I hadn’t thought about that. I do have pretty good balance. You have to, to navigate the rocks up on the mountain where the flock sometimes wanders off. A staff helps of course, but there’s only so much that can do. And to be fair, I haven’t fallen in a long time, not until yesterday’s disaster with the shoes. In my bare feet, I’m stable as a rock.

“Think I can turn that into a decent show?”

Sandy nods again, setting his window to the side. He stacks the cups on top of each other this time, then adds a small plate, a saucer, and finally a fluffy dinner roll. Then he walks his fingers along the table like a tiny human before alighting them on top of the whole tower, miming a person standing on one foot with his arms outstretched.

I laugh. “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re right, that would be fun. I’ll give it a try.”

At that point, Atala reappears at the door to the gym, announcing that lunchtime is over. The tributes gather their dishes for disposal and file back towards the gymnasium for training, but before I can follow, Sandy grabs my arm. His glances in three directions as though making sure we’re not being watched in the mess, then lowers his fingers to the sand again and traces the shape of a crescent moon. Then he looks at me, expectant, like that’s supposed to mean something.

I frown. “Uh, hate to burst your bubble, buddy, but we’re not allowed to leave our floors at night. I don’t think wandering out to go moon-watching is a good idea.”

Sandy’s face falls into a pout. He taps the window again, pointing to the moon. There’s something about this whole mess that I’m not getting, but before he can get it through my skull Atala calls for us to hurry up. We’re the only two Tributes left in the dining room. As I hurry to answer her, I see Sandy throw up a hand in annoyance out of the corner of my eye. He sighs silent and erases the moon with a swipe of his hand, tucking the window under his arm before jogging to catch up with the rest of us.

* * *

 

“Look’it the smug bastards.”

The muttering of the boy from District Seven isn’t directed at me, but he’s standing so close that I can’t help but pick up on the sound. It’s after lunch on the second day and the looming threat of our individual sessions is less than twenty-four hours away. Solstice and I are in line for a basic fencing lesson, along with a couple of other kids from the outliers so focused on the instruction that they don’t seem to notice what’s going on.

The District Seven boy – his name is Aster something, like the flower, but everyone’s called him Bunny since the compulsories for reasons I totally missed– stands nearby and glares up at the Gamemakers in their stands with fierce green eyes. There’s something wild about him, almost primal and not entirely controlled. Maybe it’s his hair, wild and prematurely gray, or maybe it’s the raw power in his limbs. They’re lean, like everyone else, but also corded with muscle and sinew.

I follow his eye-line up to the Gamemakers, who are embroiled in yet another course of their endless feast. Note pads have been discarded, pens are set aside. Not one of them so much as glances our way.

Bunny makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and rolls his fingers restlessly. I can see where he’s coming from.

“It’s like they’ve already made up their minds, huh?” I say before I can think better of it. At least I’ve got enough sense to keep my tone low. “Just imagine what they’ll be like tomorrow. We might as well not even bother to show up.”

Bunny glares at me, but it’s not nearly as harsh as what he was shooting our audience. It might be my imagination, but I think he’s smiling, just a little. He stalks to a rack of throwing weapons by the wall and snatches up one I’ve never anyone use before. It’s flat and curved at a sharp angle. Bunny tosses it from one hand to the other, judging its weight, then wrenches his arm back and flings in into the stands.

The weapon whistles as its spins towards the Gamemakers, swinging around in a wide arch. As it doubles back around it impales a peach on one of its corners and snatches the fruit straight out of a Capitol woman’s hand, earning a shriek that silences the room. The weapon, fruit and all, spins back right into Bunny’s waiting hand.

He smirks up at the Gamemakers, now awarded their full attention. He peels the peach off the edge off the edge of the weapon and slips one of the halves into his mouth, wiping the juices off on his clothes. He tucks the weapon under his arm and saddles off to the target range, chuckling to himself the whole way.

When I manage to look from his retreating back, I catch Solstice’s eye. She doesn’t say anything, as usual, but I can tell she’s thinking the exact same thing as me: with this as our competition, these Games are going to be eventful, to say the very least.  


	6. Interviews

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Yeah. Jack’s interview took me forever to get right. And then I spent forever and a day trying to figure out where this chapter should end and the next one begin. Also IRL snuck up on me. So that’s why this took so stupidly long. Sorry. I hope to get the next chapter up much more quickly

It’s too hot in my dressing room. The fluttering green girls of my prep team have, at my request, turned down the heat three times in as many hours and still I’m stewing in my suit, all clammy palms and nervous shakes. I stare at my reflection in the mirror, where an utter stranger stands. It’s enough to fray my last desperate nerve. 

“I don’t think this will work.”

“Don’t be silly,” says Psyche, pinning a silver sash to my shoulder. “You look wonderful.”

“Not the suit Psyche, _me_.” The suit is fine. Beautiful, really, like everything Psyche creates. The jacket’s a rich blue with silver snowflake buttons and cufflinks to match. The tie and slacks are slate gray, frosted with silver to match the sash, which loops over a shoulder and under an arm like those worn by district mayors. It looks good. Crisp. Clever. I’m the problem.

“Look at me,” I groan, gesturing to my unfamiliar reflection. “Just – _look_. I’m a ninety-eight pound weakling.”

“A ninety-eight pound weakling with a solid seven behind him in the training scores,” says Psyche. The preps squeal as though this wasn’t the third time they’ve heard that today and clap their hands in buzzing applause.

During the individual session I took Sandy’s advice and tried for a balancing act, first on a series of circular weights, then on a six-foot pole meant as a weapon. It caught the attention of some Gamemakers, especially the guy who started timing my balance on the pole, but most were more preoccupied with their dinner than my show.

“Nothing special about a seven,” I say. “It’s average. Others scored better.” Much better. North and Black both nailed tens. Tooth and the rest of her fellow Careers pulled nines. Even the pair from District Seven managed a decent pair of eights.

Psyche clicks her tongue in disapproval, hooking Da’s clasp into the folds of the sash so it rests against my shoulder. “Anything over a six proves you’re capable enough for consideration. All we need to do tonight is seal the deal.”

With the last details in place I’m finally allowed to turn from the mirror. My hands immediately go for my head, ruffling the bizarre white hair in frustration. One of the preps gives an indiginate squeak at my ruined ‘coiffure,’ but Psyche shushes her with a gentle hand. Three days and she already knows me well enough to guess that no hairstyle would survive the hour-long wait until District Ten is up for interviews. Good for her.

“Seal the deal?” I say, half to myself. “Who are we kidding? I can’t seal any deals. I’ve got nothing to seal with, nothing to sell. The chariots were bad enough and I didn’t even have to talk for those. Chatting up Caesar Flickerman is just – I can’t. Okay? I can’t do this!”

“Your mentors were supposed to coach you on this,” says Pscyhe, frowning as she shoos the preps back and guides me to a chair in the corner of the room. “Didn’t they work with you?”

I shrug again, feeling stupid and repetitive. “They tried. But they don’t know what to do with me. I’m too old to play vulnerable, too scrawny for intimidating, and too chatty for stoic. I can’t do ‘witty,’ just sarcastic, which won’t win me any points. Same goes for intelligent, elusive, and mysterious, and don’t even get me started on trying to play _sexy_.”

Psyche laughs, pink ringlets bouncing around her face. I scowl. “So glad you’re amused.”

“Oh, Jack,” says Psyche settling onto the bench beside me. “They’ve got you going about this all wrong.”

She takes one of my hands in both of hers, running manicured nails over my knuckles and palm. I get the feeling that she’s trying to be comforting, perhaps remind me of my mother. But her hands are much too soft. Her nails are too hard and too solid. I think of my mother, hers hands cracked and dry from long hours washing goat’s wool, and my heart aches for home.

Psyche seems to sense this. She keeps her voice soft and encouraging as she massages my hands. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of doing this, it’s that dictating your character does no good at all. You can’t tell character, you have to show it through your attitude, your actions, your attire…That’s what these clothes are for. No, what you’re going out there to tell Caesar is your story.”

Oh hell no. I am not about to go out in front of all those cameras and spill my guts for Caesar Flickerman, of all people. He seems like a nice enough guy from what we’ve seen of him on TV, but he’s Capitol all the way, with his yearly hair color changes and constant plastic surgery. I’ve seen clips of his interviews going back thirty years and he hasn’t changed a bit – he’s probably more plastic now than flesh. And then there’s the fact that he’s been cheerily commenting on the Hunger Games for forty years now without so much as batting an eye.

My ‘story’ – my _life_ – is all I’ve got left at this point. I’m not about to turn it over to a man like that.

“It doesn’t have to be much,” adds Psyche quickly, reading the disgust on my features. “It’s only three minutes, after all. Just give them something, anything. It draws them in. It’s like – oh, what is that metaphor they always use, from District Four? About fishing bait and…something…”

She trails off, looking to the preps to fill the gaps, but they’re equally clueless. District Four means fishing. Fishing means nets, but you don’t bait a net. Even with the river, there was never much chance for fishing in 10-23 unless you scored a day off during the summer, and even then the hardest thing to get ahold of was…

“...fishing hooks, maybe?”

“Yes, that’s it!” Psyche snaps her fingers. That she’s able to do so without shattering those nails of hers is impressive, I suppose. In a stupid way. “Think of the story like a fishing hook. Like this.”

She grabs a stick I hadn’t noticed before off one of the changing tables. It’s maybe three feet long, plain brown and hooked at the top, a miniature crook that would be useless in herding anything larger than tiny yappy Capitol dogs. She flips it upside-down and curls two fingers lightly around the hook, letting her hand dangle from its edge.

“You see? We’ve already got the bait in your character, especially how you look – you’re handsome enough that people will be inclined to like you just on principle – so all you need to do now is snag them with a decent story and, voila!” She yanks up the staff, dragging her hand with it, and beams as if the example makes any sense. “Just like that. Give them just enough to pull them in and they’ll just love you, I know it.”

A call comes from the hallway as Cupid informs us that we’ve all got fifteen minutes to get down to the ‘greenroom’ at Caesar Flickerman’s stage on the training center’s first level. Psyche flips the stick around and presses it into my hands before scooping me out of the chair and towards the door.

“Wait,” I fumble with the stick, trying to keep hold of it as we bustle into the hall. “What is this for?”

“It’s a walking stick, hun. To give your hands something to do. Otherwise you tend to fidget.”

“And the audience isn’t going to think I’ve got a limp?”

“Well…” Psyche grins in what’s probably an attempt to be reassuring, but it comes out as awkward and apologetic instead. “To be honest, they already think you’ve got a limp. Leaning on that staff through the whole parade and nearly falling out of the chariot at the end…it was noticeable.”

Of course. Shoes, screwing me over yet again.

We meet up with Solstice, Cupid, and the rest of the District Ten team at the elevator. She’s dressed in green again, all in elegant layers and flowing scarves. I know she’s two years younger than me, but her heavy make-up makes her look older, more mature. After a ride to the bottom floor in which only the adults speak, we’re lined up to take the stage with the rest of the Tributes, she by the boy from Nine and I in front the girl from Eleven, all of hovering about in our formal suits, the tension heavy between us all.

On Flickerman’s cue we’re paraded out to take our seats around the stage. Between the waxed wood of the stage, the strange smooth soles of my dress shoes, and the struggle to keep up with everyone’s pace, I nearly trip coming up the stairs and have to catch myself with Psyche’s walking stick. Add one more whisper to the rumors of my inability to walk.

And there’s Caesar Flickerman in all his surgery-enhanced, unchanging glory. Same midnight blue suit full of flashing lights. Same perpetual smile with its uniform rows of pearly white. Same hairstyle, this year a bright sunflower yellow with eyelids and lips to match. He riles up the audience with a few tasteful jokes before getting down to business, starting with the girl from District One.

Iana Tooth dances to center-stage in a dazzling gown of iridescent blue and green, batting two-inch-long transparent eyelashes that bring out the violet of her eyes. I expect her to flirt – District One’s luxury goods industry means they’ve almost always got their fingers on the pulse of Capitol opinion, which gives their Tributes a huge advantage in the ‘sexy’ range – but instead she’s playing innocent and bright-eyed, giggling at everything Caesar says.

Caesar, as usual, knows just what to ask to bring out the best in every Tribute. For Iana, he gently inquires after her mother, who turns out to have been a Victor herself, decades ago, and still widely beloved throughout the Capitol despite her death three years before. Tooth plays into the questions perfectly, going quiet and still but maintaining her dignity and vowing to do her best to make her mother proud.

Then the buzzer rings, singling her three minutes to be up. She’s replaced by North, once again in a brilliant red coat and furs, who laughs loud and long and regales the crowd with the story of how he won the title ‘Bandit King’ in some game they play in District One. After him comes the pair from Two, the girl’s sultry strength completely eclipsed by her partner. Pitch Black rules the stage, confidence radiating from his every word, wrapping the crowd around his finger. I swear he takes the time to smirk at every one of us Tributes on his way back to his chair, reassuring everyone that he’ll be the one standing tall once we’re through in the Arena.

The talks fly by, buzzer after buzzer. I’m nervous for Sandy’s sake when his turn comes around, but he’s clever and quick with that board of his, drawing pictures in response to Caesar’s questions that draw a laugh every time he turns them towards the audience. He never stops smiling either, taking the time to turn to every camera so all of Panem thinks he’s grinning right at them.

With Five out of the way it goes to Six, then Seven. Aster-Bunny-whatever plays stoic for all he’s worth. He can get away with snappish answers thanks to the muscles cording and moving beneath his bare arms. They’re covered with the same blue marks as at the Tribute parade and, for the first time, it occurs to me that they might not be body paint after all.

Eight. The little boy from the knot-station trembles in his seat, head almost comically high as he tries to stay strong. Nine. Despite Caesar’s efforts, the girl is too scared to even speak.

Finally. Ten.

I overheard Sostice’s session with her mentor this morning. They decided that the best angle for her to take would be controlled elegance with a tempered edge – the ‘Iron Lady’ as her mentor called it. It was a good decision. With her dress and make-up making her look so much older, her clipped replies and reluctance to speak with Flickerman come across as self-control than utter disdain.

My heart nearly stops when her buzzer rings. Solstice rises for her farewell bow, allows Caesar to kiss her hand like a good lady, and returns to her seat amid a buzz of what is probably applause, but fills my ears as white noise.

And then…then they’re calling my name. ‘Jack Frost’ never sounded so distant or so foreign before.

Stumbling to my feet, I use the walking stick to pull myself up before I can think better of it. The short walk to center-stage is made without letting the wood touch the ground. Caesar grasps my free hand in a welcoming shake, patting the back like we’re old friends and subtly angling my body so I’m turned towards one of the cameras as we settle in the chairs.

“So then. Jack Frost.” Caesar’s expression goes mock-thoughtful as he settles, as though he were rolling my name around in his mouth. “Jack Frost, Jack. Frost. Interesting name you’ve got there, very sharp, very crisp. Tell me, where’d it come from? Do you know?”

He thinks my name is interesting? That’s something to hear from a guy called Flickerman, especially given some of the names the Capitol throws around. It’s so out of left field that it takes a few seconds before my mind can shore up a response. “It, uh. It was my Da’s.”

Da. One hand goes for the clasp at my shoulder without thinking, reassuring myself that it’s still there. It is. I swallow my nerves, trying to pull myself together.

“Sort’ve. He was actually named John, but everyone called him Jack. It’s an old nickname, back home. So when I came along, I was Jack’s son – that’s my full name, Jackson.” That gets a laugh from the crowd, so unexpected that I jump a bit. Then I’m just annoyed. First ‘interesting,’ now they think my name is funny? When one of my opponents is nicknamed for a _rabbit_?

I tighten my grip on the walking stick. It takes everything I have not to scowl. “So yeah. That’s where it’s from.”

“Interesting,” says Caesar, shining up his bare chin. “And speaking of nicknames, I hear they’ve got some interesting ones for you back home. ‘Lucky Frost’, they call you. And ‘The One Who Survived.’” He draws that out, wagging his butter-yellow eyebrows at the nearest camera. A few crowd members make appreciative, curious noise. “What’s the story behind those?”

A calm settles over my mind. Oh, my heart’s still pounding like the hoof-beats of an entire flock, but the rest of me, my body and my mind, can relax. Psyche said to tell a story. Okay. I can tell this story. I’ve told it time and time again. It’s one my best.

“Well. You have to understand. Up in the mountains of 10-23, we get some harsh weather, especially the long, cold, dark winters. Makes things tough, like the grass. It’s good for the goats.” Another laugh. At least this one was intentional. I give Caesar a grin, then slowly let it fall, the way Tooth did earlier. “But…it’s not so good for people. Especially little people. We lose a lot of kids pretty young. You’re lucky enough if you live to learn to walk.”

A few people in the crowd muffle gasps of sympathy and horror behind their hands. Hypocrites, the lot of them. Of course they’re sorry for the death of infants in the cold, not the murder of children forced to kill for their entertainment. I wring the walking stick in my hands, focusing all my disgust and frustration through my fingers and palms.

“The year I was born, we got the harshest winter on record. Which, trust me, is saying a lot. Of the ten, eleven babies that were born that year…I was the only one who lived to see spring. That nicknames started up immediately after that.”

Caesar makes a sympathetic noise that’s echoed by half the audience. He reaches across to pat the hand that’s resting on the hook of my cane. “Must have been tough, growing up alone.”

I shrug. “It’s not like I was completely alone. There were always other kids, some older, some younger. The teachers used to shift me around from one year to another in school, give me a desk on my own, let me work at my own pace. And I had my Ma, and my sister…”

“…and the little boy you volunteered for at the Reaping?”

My throat slams shut, cutting off the words. I curl my fingers tight around the staff. Caesar must feel it, as touchy as he’s being. Can the cameras see? I clear my throat.

“Yeah. Jamie, too.”

Caesar nods thoughtfully, patting my hand again before settling back in his chair. “Is he a friend of your sister’s?”

Oversimplification much? I nearly laugh. “Of course he is. He’s mine too. We’re neighbors. He lives next door.” Lived. Lived next door. I don’t live there anymore. I can never go home… “His dad and mine were close. Practically brothers. We’re family in all but blood.”

“And is that why you’re doing this, then? For his sake?”

For the first time, I risk a glance up through my bleached-white bangs, catching the glare from the lens of the nearest camera. I imagine looking through it all the way back home to 10-23, where Jamie and my sister and my mother will all be watching. They have to. It’s mandatory.

“Yes,” I say to Caesar. _But it’s not your fault, Jamie. I volunteered. The fate is mine._

Caesar huffs a massive sigh as though he’s been holding his breath and chuckles, leaning forward in his chair. “Well then. Jackson Frost. ‘Lucky’ Frost. I hope your luck endures.” He extends his hand, smiling that perfect, pearly-white smile. “May you continue to be the one who survived.”

As much as it makes my skin crawl, I accept the handshake with quiet thanks that are lost to the applause of the crowd. The buzzer sounds. My three minutes are up. I stumble through a bow, then retreat to my chair and collapse, boneless, my knuckles white against the walking stick’s wood.

There’s two Districts worth of interviews to go, but I don’t hear a word. Next thing I know we’re rising for the anthem again, and then we’re back inside the Training Center with our babbling escorts and fluttering stylists and everyone’s being so encouraging that they don’t seem to notice neither Solstice nor I have the words left to speak.

Dinner passes in a blur even as we move the last three courses to the couch to watch the recap of the interviews. It might as well be reruns from Hunger Games past. All that pale hair and blue suit…I don’t recognize myself at all.

As our mentors and escorts prepare to say goodbye for the last time, they stop to ask if there’s anything else we want to know, or tell them, or take home to our families. There’s nothing. Nothing I would trust them with, anyway. They say their goodbyes and swear to their best to help us, and Psyche stops before she leaves to kiss my forehead and promise that she’ll see me in the morning for our final preparations.

I linger at the glass elevator after she leaves, staring through the elevator glass at the streets far below. In anticipation of the morning to come, the Captiol audience has become a party. Videos splayed over banners and building sides flicker between the faces of the Tributes, snippets of our interviews, and replays of the parade, all of it interspersed with the blood-red numbers of a ticking clock, counting down every painful second until the 71st Hunger Games will finally begin.

* * *

 

_Bi-dock. Tsh. Bi-dock. Tsh._  

My fitful sleep is broken in the middle of the night by a soft, repetitive noise outside my door. If I were sleeping nearly as deep as I should be, I wouldn’t have heard it at all. But between the echoes of ongoing celebrations far below my bedroom and the sheer anxiety of what awaits us in the morning, a restful sleep is but a distant dream.

I lie awake for a moment after coming to, staring into the darkness and counting the repetitions of the sound. Fourteen…fifteen…sixteen…it comes again every five seconds or so, as steady and constant as the ticking of a clock. After fifty counts I can’t take it anymore. I roll out of bed in nothing but pajama bottoms and go to investigate.

What I find outside my door is Solstice, wearing only a nightgown with her sheets wrapped around her shoulders. She sits in the hall between our rooms with her back to the door of a storage cupboard, tossing a hollow wooden ball against the floor. Each time it bounces once, ricochets off the opposite wall, and rolls back to her hand with the same whispering sounds.

_Bi-dock. Tsh. Bi-dock. Tsh._

She doesn’t break rhythm when I approach, glancing up for only a second. I take that as an invitation and step closer, bare feet silent over the polished floor. “Hey,” I say, to fill our silence with something besides the sound of wood on wood. “Can’t sleep?”

“Obviously.” Solstice sniffs, but there’s neither humor nor condescension in it, only resignation. “Who could?”

“Not me.”

I crouch down next to her, sitting on my heels. She continues with her game and does not pull away. This is the first time she’s allowed me to be near her and alone since that brief moment we shared on the chariot before the Tribute’s parade. Without that finery, her make-up, or even the basic clothes provided for training, she looks different. Vulnerable. She is neither a spirit of summer nor an elegant woman with a heart of stone. She is a fourteen-year-old girl facing what could be the last night of her life.

“Is that your token?” I ask, pointing to the ball.

She nods and pauses in her bouncing, rolling the little thing in her hands. I think it might have been painted green, at one point, but now it’s old and faded and the paint has chipped away to reveal the smooth wood that lies below. “It was a gift.”

“From your family?”

Her hand trembles. The ball rolls across her palm and nearly slips until she closes her fingers, holding it close to her heart. “I don’t have a family anymore.”

The implication sinks in like a stone thrown into the river. I swallow, allowing sympathy to rise. “I’m sorry.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Solstice passes the ball from one hand to the other, staring at it as though it were a precious jewel. She hesitates, and for a moment I think she’s going to close herself off again. Then she tucks a bit of hair behind her ear and glances my way. “Back home, in your village…how much do they let you hear about what goes on in the other towns?”

I consider it. The nightly news is mandatory viewing throughout the District every working day, especially when you’re in school. Then there’s the special announcements and the rumors for the shipment trucks, and other bits and pieces here and there and…

“Enough, I guess.”

“Really? You’re pretty isolated, you know. Way up in the mountains. It so easy to keep you out of the loop.” Solstice chuckles without humor, tossing her ball again so that it bounces twice before striking the wall and rolling lazily back into her hand. “That’s the point, of course. Keep everyone out of the loop. Keep the Districts from talking outside, keep the people from talking inside. Makes it so much easier to hide and lie and make things disappear.”

She stops again as though having seconds thoughts, as though she’s not certain how much of this she should or wants to tell me. I can tell from the way her brows scrunch together and how her lips press into a very thin line that this something she’s been holding back a long time, maybe since even before the Reaping. If that’s the case, it seems whatever dams she built up to hold it have finally overflowed. The story spills from her in whispers, like a bedtime story on the darkest winter nights.

“Two years ago, there was an organized protest in some of the processing plants in 10-4. They started sabotaging the meat before it was shipped. Improper packaging, deliberate infections, ignoring quality control, the works. They hoped it’d make the Capitol think twice about the hours or the conditions or…something. Whatever the point was supposed to be, it didn’t work. All it brought was more Peacekeepers. A lot of people lost their lives.” She sighs. “And then they figured out the whole thing was my father’s idea.”

Something clammy and disgusting slides into my stomach and settles into a putrid sludge. “Was it really?”

“I don’t know. It could have been. He hated the Capitol, when was at home.” Solstice rolls her wooden ball from one palm to the other, her eyes unfocused, gazing at something far away. “They had him killed in front of the entire town. My mother too, and her brothers – they were in on the plan. All of them. Dead.”

Like Da. And Jamie’s da. And so many others. I close my eyes, blocking out the memory of snapping bones.

“With them gone, I got sent to live with my brother. Most of the town avoided us, after. Can’t blame them. Have to keep themselves safe. His wife was expecting. She died last year, from ‘complications in childbirth.’ The baby didn’t live either.” She sighs, leaning her head back against the wall. “Within six months my brother was gone too. In an ‘accident.’ And now I’m here. Odds sure were convenient for it.”

Sarcasm tinged with resignation drips like poison from her every word. “You think the drawing was rigged.”

“I _think_ that no matter what I do, there’s no way the Capitol will ever let me leave that Arena alive.”

The finality in her words cuts our conversation short, returning our apartment to its original dark silence. I stew her words around in my mind a while and find that, yes, I can see exactly where she’s coming from. It’s like how Victors’ children are more likely to be Reaped because it ups the drama, or all the processing plant accidents that just happen to take out those few workers whispering anti-government sentiments beneath their breaths. If the Capitol’s goal is to wipe out her entire family line, there probably isn’t anything that could stop them.

But it wouldn’t due to give up just because the odds aren’t in your favor. If it did, we might as well both roll over and die, right here and right now.

“Okay,” I say, a plot forming in my mind even as I speak. “How about this for a game plan: tomorrow morning, each of us grabs one bag at the Cornucopia. Decent odds of getting something good that way. Then we make a run for it. Watch each other’s backs. Form an alliance. Keep ourselves alive.”

Solstice stares like I’ve just grown a third arm and a second head. “Were you not listening? I just told you, they are never going to let me –”

“—leave the Arena alive, I know.” I give her a sideways grin, the same one that always made Jamie relax whenever he started stressing out over a dry streak in the traps. “But if they want you dead that badly, then the best way to screw them over is to stay alive as long as possible. Right?”

Solstice frowns but, after a moment of consideration, nods.

“And the best way to stay alive for a while is to work together. So let’s do it. You and me.” And maybe some others. Sandy, perhaps. He seems clever enough, and so quiet that people won’t think to go for him. Safety in numbers, and all. “So, what’dya say?”

Solstice shakes her head, sending waves of strawberry blonde hair rippling over her shoulders. “I say you’re completely off your rocker.” Then she smiles. An actual, warm smile. “But you’ve got yourself a deal.”

We shake on it. Her grip’s impressively strong for a fourteen-year-old girl.

After that, Solstice gathers up her token and her sheets and returns to her room, bidding me a final goodnight. I linger in the dark hallway for a while after, listening to the silence and trying to imagine what sort of Arena we’ll be entering in just a few short hours. Finally, I drag myself back to bed. For the first time since the Reaping, I don’t have any dreams. 


	7. Bloodbath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** This story, in particular this chapter, includes descriptions of violence and child-death.   
>  …Yeah, I know I already said that and this is a Hunger Games AU so it should be a given. But trigger-y stuffy is trigger-y and I made myself a bit uncomfortable at one point during this, so I think it bears repeating. Death is coming. Unhappy things abound.

The hovercraft ride to the Arena is long and quiet and dark. We leave before sunrise, each in our own personal crafts with only our stylists at our side. Solstice and I meet ours together. They’re identical to every other one I’ve seen on TV and, for a ridiculous moment, I wonder if they’re personalized enough that these same machines will be the ones to gather our bodies after we’ve died. 

I spend the hours of our journey trying to eat, filling my stomach one last time before the starvation to come. It takes all my willpower and a fair bit of ginger and peppermint to keep it from coming right back up.

After who knows how long, the hovercraft lands, dropping us off in a bunker somewhere beneath in the Arena. I’m expecting the sprawling catacombs they always show on the TV, but this year it all seems rather self-contained. There’s only a few halls, with little in the way of branch paths. We have to wait our turn to be allowed into my designated Stockyard – sorry, ‘Launch Room’ – which seems even smaller and more pristine than the ones they show in documentaries at school.  

The designated uniform arrives while I’m in the shower. Psyche lays it out for me on a changing table and smiles when I return to the room. “Looks like the odds are in your favor after all,” she says, holding up an off-white shirt. It’s long-sleeved and heavy, made of some woven material that’s warmer even than the best wool from home. “Cold-weather gear, all of it. I’d say you’re in for wintery terrain. Your specialty.”

She helps me dress in long underwear, heavy denim pants, and a blue hooded coat with an interior lining meant to reflect body heat. There’s also gloves, socks, and a pair of thick-soled hiking boots that must weigh a ton. My stomach lurches.

“I can’t wear those.” I hate how desperate my voice sounds, but I can’t help it. I can just imagine tumbling from the podium like a wounded animal to set upon instantly by blood-thirsty Careers. Dead before the first minute. “I can’t. I’d never make it. I –”

Psyche shushes me gently, placing her finger against my lips. She undoes the laces of the boots, but instead of pushing them onto my feet she ties them to one another, knotting and double-knotting so they won’t come loose even with the extra weight. She stuffs a sock into each, pulls up the hood of my coat, and drapes them around my neck.

“There. They may still come in handy, later. Especially if you want to keep warm.”

The last thing she adds is my father’s clasp, its crescent moon and snowflake polished to a gleaming shine. There’s no lapel or button hole in which to stick it, so Psyche uses her nails to rip a patch of my jacket lining and tuck it close against my heart. One of her nails breaks in doing so, but she bites back any complaints. The gesture leaves me oddly touched.

Then comes the waiting. I don’t know how long they leave us down there. Psyche, for once, doesn’t fill the silence with mindless chatter. She sits quietly, speaking only to encourage me to drink a little more water, eat a few more nuts, get a little more in me before I’m thrown into the wild. My mind spends the whole time trying to unravel what sort of arena I’m about to enter. Years ago they tossed the Tributes onto a glacier, but those Games ended with everyone freezing one by one and the Capitol hated it. Not enough blood. That means there will, most likely, be some kind of trees. A forest maybe. And snow?

Finally, it’s time. Psyche sweeps me into a final hug, kisses my forehead, and runs her fingers one last time through the pale hair she gave me. Then she wishes me luck and leads me to the metal circle in the center of the room. As she steps away, I think I hear her muffle a quiet sob.

A glass tube lowers from the ceiling over my head. It lifts me into the air and through the ceiling. For long, agonizing seconds after, there is only darkness. Then I feel the first cold rush of frigid wind from overhead, right before the metal platform pushes me into open air.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” says the voice of Claudius Templesmith in my ear and in my mind and in the air all around me in every direction. “Let the Seventy-First Hunger Games begin.”

* * *

 

The Cornucopia sits in the center of a flat white circle as pure and glistening as the cleanest marble Capitol floors. It takes my eyes adjusting for me to realize that it isn’t stone. It’s snow. Not a thick layer, maybe two inches at most, just enough to cover the ground, which is barren and rocky. 

In the sixty seconds that we’re trapped on our platform by underground mines, I take in as much as I can. We twenty-four stand equidistant from the gleaming silver Cornucopia and its spoils, scattered around a steamroller-flat circle on the edge of a high cliff. The sky is blue and cloudless, but not warm. Without a cover to trap the heat, the empty air is frigid. It burns the lungs.

Behind me is the mountain, rocky and dotted with trees. Within thirty feet it angles almost straight up, much too sheer to climb even without the snow that covers its gray stones. Directly opposite, on the other side of the piled supplies, the cliff simply ends with only open air and a sheer, straight drop. There could be anything down there, from a lake deep enough for safe landings in to jagged spikes waiting for bodies to be impaled.

The other two-quarters of the wide circle are ringed with stones ranging from the height of a full-grown goat to massive boulders taller even than North or Pitch Black. There are gaps between them, here and there, leading to paths through yet more trees, though here they angle in different directions, some trailing up the mountain, others down and out of sight. There are only a few ways in or out of the circle. Whoever takes the Cornucopia will have a veritable fort from which to plan their attack.

The peak on which we stand is the smallest of a long range that seem to dominate the Arena, stretching around us in a huge curve from horizon to horizon. Snow glistens on every cap despite the fact that it should be mid-summer. A cold and bitter wind howls through the mountains, chilling us to the bone. Tributes from the warmer Districts shiver on their platforms, tugging up hoods and pulling coats more tightly around their bodies. The air hangs heavy with the scent of rich black earth, moist stone, and fresh snow.

For the first time since last night, I feel a flash of hope. It’s like home. So close to home.

At the very tip of the Cornucopia’s curled silver tail, a number made of white light counts down the seconds until the mines are shut off and Games can truly begin. Twenty-five left now. Twenty-four. Twenty-three…

I scan the circle of Tributes, finding Solstice a third of the way around, strawberry-blonde hair plaited down her back. She holds my gaze and nods once, slow enough that the others won’t see. Good. She’s still in for our plan from last night. One bag each, then we take to the trees. The nearest path is just to her right. We’ll go that way and won’t stop until we’ve left them all behind.

Eighteen seconds. Seventeen. Sixteen. I scan the ground for prime targets of supplies to snatch. All the best stuff, from blankets and food to weapons, are piled right at the Cornucopia’s mouth. But there, just ten or twenty feet from my platform, is a duffle bag that could hold who knows what. I angle myself to go after it, shifting the boots from around my neck to over one shoulder. Here, at least, is where the rumors of my limp will come in handy. They won’t know what hit them until we’re long gone.

Ten seconds left on the clock. I shift my stance on the metal, to make sure I don’t slip on the starting block.

Nine seconds. I lift my eyes from the bag for the slightest moment, offering Solstice a final semi-confident grin.

Eight seconds. Seven. Six…

An explosion shatters the frozen air.

It echoes through the arena, bouncing from mountain to mountain. There comes a rush of moving air, more warm and solid than wind. A black and gray pillar of smoke curls into the sky.

The boy from District Eleven howls in pain, clutching one ear. On the opposite side, the girl from Five shrieks in madness-inducing horror, her face and clothes splattered with blood and melting snow. I am more than far enough away to avoid the initial aftermath, but I almost wish that I wasn’t. At least then, I would have a different reaction than allowing the tiny, smoldering crater to burn itself into my memory.

Solstice stood there only moments ago. Now there is only black and blood and ruined clothes.

Bile fills my mouth. My nose floods with the acrid scent of burning meat. I nearly choke forcing myself not to throw up. I stumble back, off the platform, and for a terrifying second I think the same thing is going to happen to me. But no. The gong’s sound was lost in the echo from the blast. Our ten seconds are up.

Most Tributes are still reacting to the explosion, yelling or gawking, trying to figure out what happened, but a few have already sprinted for the store at the Cornucopia. Bunny from District Seven is one of them, bursting from the silver horn with a brown bag large enough to hide a body in slung across his back. In each hand he holds one of those strange curved weapons from the Training Center.

He takes off at a full sprint. The girl from Two moves to cut him off. Using a plastic crate for extra height, he leaps straight over her head, rolls on the landing back to his feet and, without a second’s hesitation, bounds straight over the side of the cliff.

I think that I hear water splashing as he lands, but by the time that comes I’m already moving. Run, Jack. I have to run. I have to get away or they’ll kill me here and now. Solstice is dead – blown to bits, oh god, there’s blood soaking the snow all around the blackened hole – and if I don’t hurry I’ll be just like her, hacked the pieces with only seconds on the clock.

I lunge for the duffle bag I’d targeted before, scoop it off the ground, and race pell-mell for the nearest opening in the rocks. I’m only feet away when a thought strikes me and I slide to a stop on the snow. Sandy. And the boy from Eight. Where are they? I know they can’t be up for a fight, neither of them, but are they fast enough to get away?

Catching myself on the nearest rock, I scan the plain which has, in seconds, dissolved into a battlefield. Two bodies lay on the ground already, pools of red soaking through the snow. The Careers have taken hold of the Cornucopia’s mouth. North covers Tooth with a pair of sabers while she stuffs armful after armful of supplies into several bags. The boy from twelve tries to charge them, only for North to catch him across the chest with the flat of one sword – was that an accident? – and kick him in the stomach, sending him flying.

It’s a madhouse as Tributes grapple and hack and scramble for what little they can get their hands on. But there’s no sign of Sandy’s golden hair.

There, though. There on the ground just west of the silver horn is the boy from District Eight. He scrambles backwards on all fours, clutching a bolt of cloth as the female Career from District Four bears down on him, spear in hand. She’s taking her time, advancing on him like a wildcat on an injured nag, and grinning in anticipation of her first kill.

My body moves before I can think better of what I’m about to do. I sling the duffle over my shoulders and race across the field, ducking only to scoop up a handful of ice, rock, and snow. In mid-run, I pack it together as tight as I can, willing it to be hard and solid and easy to throw.

I fling it with everything I can muster just as the girl from District Four raises her spear. It strikes her in the forehead, dead-on between the eyes. She falls backwards, stunned. The spear tumbles from her hand. The boy from District Eight rolls out of its way, and its tip buries itself in the hard, frozen ground.

“Come on!” I shout, skidding to a stop and nearly tripping on a long wooden rod half-hidden in the snow. “Come on kid, let’s get out of here. Run!”

No need to say that twice twice. The District Eight boy rolls to his feet, still clutching the bolt of cloth in his arms. He’s fast, but without my shoes I’m faster. No one’s coming for us yet, they’re all distracted with the fighting closer to the heart of the plain. I can get him out of here. He’s small enough to carry for a sprint. I crouch and reach for his grasping hand.

He’s inches away when the arrow comes. It’s black and barely smaller than a spear. It rips straight through the boy’s neck from the back, the momentum from the blow carrying his body forward.

And just like that, there’s a dead twelve-year-old lying in my arms.

My mind goes completely blank. There, on a plastic foot-locker in the Cornucopia’s mouth, stands Pitch Black. His pale lips curl into a sardonic grin. He lifts a massive black hunting bow and mouths, _Better run._

The body slips from my grasp. My arms move on their own, one clutching the District Eight boy’s bolt of cloth and the other grasping for the rod at my side. As the arrow leaves its string, I leap. The jagged black arrow head buries itself in the bolt of cloth and catches, its head nicking my cheek.

Then I’m on my feet and running. There’s a stone ahead, two, maybe three feet high. I drop the cloth-and-arrow to grasp the rod in both hands and vault over the bolder, clearing it by bare inches.

By the time Pitch Black draws his bow again, I’ve disappeared into the trees.

* * *

 

Immediately outside the Cornucopia’s circle, the forest dives to a sharp angle that sends me careening, out of control, through bushes and trees and snow and rocks. I’m moving more on instinct now than any rational thought, using the rod to push away from danger the way I used to do at home. I can’t think. I can barely breathe. My mind remains at the Cornucopia, trapped between snapshots of Solstice the moment before the explosion and that little boy the second Black’s arrow pierced his throat. 

Dead. Both dead. Who knows how many others will join them before the bloodbath comes to a close.

An unseen root catches my foot, wrenching my ankle. I fall and roll, bouncing off rocks and trees, unable to slow my descent. Up ahead, I catch sight of a drop – hell, not another cliff – and scramble to catch myself. It’s no good. I roll straight off the edge, only for something in my hands to catch and leave me dangling. Cold, rushing water skims my bare toes.

It’s a river, wider and darker than the one back home. That’s as much as I can understand before my grip fails. I drop. Pebbles slip and slide beneath my feet. I stumble into a wall of heavy clay and sink against it, curling instinctively around my hard-fought spoils. Ice-cold water soaks my legs up to the knee. I should stand and keep moving. I can’t be nearly far enough from the bloodbath to be safe yet. But my limbs won’t listen. They’re trembling too much for me to move.

I close my eyes, trying to will away the fear. That turns out to be a mistake. In the darkness, the bag I clutch becomes a child’s body, broken and dying. First it’s the boy from District Eight. Then it’s Jamie. Then, my sister.

Worse still, the acrid scent of charred flesh and explosive residue seems to have burned itself into my nose. Every breath I take only brings me back to the awful moment. To Solstice.

I came into this arena with a plan and an ally. We may not have been friends, exactly, but we had our understandings. We were Ten. She was closer to home than anything I’ve been allowed since I volunteered.

Now she’s gone. I am alone. I am afraid.

I will give myself a moment, only a moment, to grieve. Then I will move. I will escape. And I will survive. 


	8. Nightmares

Five minutes. 

That’s as long as I allow myself to rest, counting up the seconds until I reach three hundred. Then I force myself to take stock of my surroundings.

The ridge I’m huddled under is maybe ten feet high and matched by the one across, indicating that the river sometimes runs much higher that it does now. I can’t tell how deep it goes in the middle, but I’m standing on a shallow strip of pebbles with only a few inches running over the top. The arrow-speared bolt of cloth – which must have, by some stroke of luck, lodged on my bag when I fled– lies near my feet.

What caught me in my roll was the rod I’d snatched from the Cornucopia, the one I used to vault over the rocks. I brought it with me without thinking. It’s only after I dislodge it from the lip of the ridge that I realize it’s not a straight rod at all. It’s a crook, like the one I carried at the Tributes parade.

It’s so ridiculous that the only reason I don’t laugh is because I’m so surprised. Damn, it’s going to be one of _those_ Games. In the last decade, certain Gamemakers have gotten overly fond of providing potential victors an ‘iconic’ weapon based on their training skills or District. It gives them something to market in the off-season between bloodbaths. “Can’t afford the attention of Finnick Odair? At least you’ll always have this replica trident on your wall!”

That also explains the strange arrows and ominous black bow. Of course Pitch would play to the market. District 2 always does.

Just the thought of Pitch Black and his wicked smile makes my stomach twist. I run a hand over my eyes to wipe the dizziness away. My palm finds something sticky splattered across my face, my neck, my hair. My hand, when I pull it back, bears red stains.

Blood. The drying blood of the boy from District Eight.

If I’d been anyone else, from anywhere else, this might have broken me. But I’m from District Ten, where butchery and stockyard tours are part of an average school day. I’ve spent half my life hunting, skinning, and preparing animals to keep myself alive.

I choke down my disgust, splashing water on my face and hands and scrubbing until the stickiness is finally gone. Since I don’t want to soak my clothes in this frigid weather, there’s nothing to dry off on. And if it’s hard for the cameras to tell the washing-up from the tears, well. All the better. Sponsors don’t favor the weak.

Once I’ve got the worst off, I gather what I’ve managed to bring with me, pull the hood over my gleaming hair, and start walking. I have to keep moving. I’m still too close, too exposed. I need to put as much distance between myself and the other tributes as I can while they’re distracted fighting for the Cornucopia’s spoils.

I spend the next several hours wading up-stream, using the crook to prod the current ahead so I don’t fall in any sudden holes. If I’m right, then the Tributes like Bunny who jumped over the cliff must have landed further on and been washed down-stream, so even if someone starts hunting immediately after the bloodbath ends they’ll probably head that way first. Besides, I won’t leave any tracks down here, and the cool water feels good on the aching ankle I turned on my way down the hill.

I stuff my boots and the bolt of cloth – arrow and all – into the bag, then seal it up without looking inside. There will be time to examine the spoils later, once I’m truly safe. As for the crook, I come to realize after a few hours of getting to know it that it’s not actually wooden at all. Its center is made of some light and sturdy metal, while the wood is more of a decorative shell. I guess that explains how it was able to hold my weight. As far as ‘icons’ go, it’s not greatest weapon, but I rather like it. It reminds me just enough of home that I can almost ignore the blood staining my collar and the acrid scent burned into my nose.

Hours float by in the babbling of the brook and the rushing of the wind through the trees. I can tell roughly how much time has passed by the placement of the sun, clear and bright in the open sky. It’s creeping towards the horizon, indicating mid-afternoon, when a loud bang echoes through the Arena. It’s the first canon of the Games. Solstice’s death knell.

I force the thought out of my mind and turn my ear from the river to count shots. They have to pause for a minute or two between each to allow the echo to dissipate. Seven shots total, now. Eight. Nine. Ten. Then silence.

Only ten then. That’s a bit low, for the bloodbath. I can only hope that it means the terrain is too hard or too unfamiliar for the hunters to pursue their prey without first distributing the spoils. I deliberately refuse to think about who the other eight dead might be, yet. If the world were just, someone would have gotten Pitch for what he did to the boy from Eight. But then again, if the world were just, none of us would be here at all.

In however far I’ve wandered, the river has changed. Gone are the piles of shifting stones, replaced by rapids with wide, smooth rocks. Mountains close in from both sides. The path ambles steadily uphill, but not nearly as much as the riverbed ridges, which grow steadily higher. I suspect they will soon disappear altogether, leaving only the river and the rocks in the place where two mountains meet.

Since there’s no sign that I’ve been followed, I take the chance to settle on a dry rock with my sore ankle in the stream and go over the supplies I’ve managed to scrape together. In addition to the staff, the bag contains three metal cups of varying size; two small, unlabeled cans of food with ring-pull tops; a basic set of flint and steel for starting fires; and an extra pouch that could hold maybe half-a-gallon of anything I wanted it to, though it doesn’t seem to be waterproof.

Most these supplies go back into the duffle with my socks and boots, save for the mid-sized cup, which I with water from the river over and over until my thirst is quenched. It’s not ideal, since the water’s not purified, but what can I do? There’s no iodine, and I can’t risk a fire, so I’ll just have to hope that this river is enough like the one at home to not make me sick.

And then there’s the bolt of cloth, which isn’t, now that I get to look at it, technically a ‘bolt’ at all. It’s a square, about four meters on each side, that’s been folded up and wrapped around cardboard for easy storage. Now I’m no expert in any cloth that’s not wool, but at a touch this stuff seems similar to the water-resistant, heat-reflecting material in my coat; an excellent cover for spending the night in this frigid arena. No wonder the boy from Eight picked this out of everything to Cornucopia had to offer. He really he knew his trade, even so young.

The only downside is that it’s all a shimmering silver that’s anything but natural. I’ll have to camouflage it the moment I get the chance. That just leaves the question of what I’ll do before settling down for the night. Do I continue up-river and risk dead-ending into a waterfall or dam with walls too sheer to climb? Or do I risk the mountains, with their familiar caps of snow, in hopes of finding a secure location to defend as my own?

Surely, once they’ve exhausted the downstream route, the Careers will stick to the riverside for at least another day – it’s an easy landmark to trace and fresh water cannot be undervalued in the Arena. Moreover, if the river does flow higher, I wouldn’t put it past the Gamemakers to flood its banks the moment things grow dull. But as much as these mountains look like home, they’re not the ones I know. There could be anything lurking there, from deadly mutations to poisonous fog to avalanche traps just waiting to be sprung.

Still, it’s not like I’ve never stepped into the unknown before. Maybe if I’m lucky the cold and snow will keep the others out of the mountain heights.

I repack my bag and drink my fill from the river before using the staff to swing over the ridge and into the mountain woods. There’s no trail through these trees, only a light dusting of snow just deep enough to leave a trail but too shallow to be any use in covering them back up again. Roots struggle for purchase against the rocky earth and one another, leaving the ground uneven. No good for running. That’ll slow both sides down in a chase, but better to avoid it altogether by not leading the hunters to my location.

The next few hours are slow-going, hopping from rock to rock to tree root over the uneven path, using the staff to carry me further with each jump than a human step would be able to reach on its own. Hopefully, if the Careers see the marks I’m leaving in the snow, they won’t recognize it for what it is. By the time the sun sets my arms are aching, and I haven’t seen a hint of any animal aside from the occasional fluttering bird. Catching meat out here is going to be a struggle.

The real trouble is finding shelter for the night. As the sun dips, so does the temperature, plummeting from cold to freezing. I’ve seen Tributes on the television climb trees to protect themselves from animals and hunters alike, but this woods won’t be any good for that. The branches are too thin.

In the end, as twilight falls, I wind up burrowing down into the underbrush between two trees, digging into the black earth beneath the snow. The socks and boots go back on my feet, adding a bit of warmth to my freezing toes, while the hood of my coat and my gloves helps to keep the chill from my other extremities. I half-cover myself with the silver cloth from District Eight, masking what silver splotches I can see with the dark earth until night falls and I’m left almost completely blind.

I settle in among the stones and roots, hoping that this will be enough to keep me warm and hidden for the night. My stomach growls, but I don’t dare try to break into my precious canned food just yet. Better to save those for a last resort. After all, I stuffed myself before coming here. I can last a day with no food. Maybe more.

I’ve just pulled the staff alongside me and am about to consider falling asleep when the first strains of the national anthem float through the still night air. The notes echo off the mountains and reverberate, softer with each repetition, giving the familiar song a haunting refrain. Through the gaps in the trees, the Capitol seal appears on its massive hidden screen. Then it dims and the headshots of our ten dead Tributes begin to appear, along with plain numbers indicating their districts.

First is the boy from District Three. That means that North, Tooth, Pitch Black, and his District partner have all survived. It’s not a surprise, but as much as I’d hoped someone would give Black a healthy dose of payback, it still stings.

Next is the girl from Five – Sandy’s partner. But not Sandy. He’s alive, along with the girl from Three and the two Careers from Four. I feel relieved, which seems odd given that I don’t actually know Sandy or anything about him. He seems nice though, and his smiling face would be good to see after everything that’s happened. Maybe there’s still a chance for us to meet up and help each other out.

After that comes the boy from Six and both Tributes from Eight, including the little boy. Back home, they’ll be watching recaps of every death, which means they’ll see me covered in that child’s blood, unable to do anything to stop his death. There’s the girl from Nine, and finally, at number seven, our first kill: Solstice.

I try to memorize her headshot in the few seconds it lingers on-screen, preserving her in my memory. Not as a crater surrounded by blood. Not as a pillar of smoke rising into the air. Just as a girl, fourteen years old, of serious face and distant eyes, silently calling out the Capitol for its every crime against her family.

The last three are the girl from Eleven and the pair from Twelve, filling out the full ten just like the canons said. Then the Capitol seal appears with a final musical flourish before going completely dark, leaving us fourteen tributes alone in the night with only silence and the cold.

I should sleep. But for a while all I can bring myself to do is stare at the place where the screen once hung, thinking of Solstice. As much as I don’t want to, I find my mind wandering back to her last seconds, trying to piece together the truth. Did she really step off that platform too early, throw away our plans for a quick and easy death? Or is that just what the Capitol wants us all to think? Could they, would they have wiped her out so quick to guarantee her death?

_“They will never let me leave that Arena alive…”_

I drift into a restless sleep with my mind still whirring. Thankfully, I never slip quite far enough to dream, catching my few hours of rest in stolen snippets cut short by every rattling breeze and snapping twig.

Just as the first hint of pale dawn creeps over distant hills, another canon shot echoes through the trees. That’s enough to startle me wide awake. I strain my ears and my eyes for a hint of the hovercraft come to collect the body or the cheers of victorious hunters on the prowl. Nothing. Wherever and however our unfortunate eleventh died, they’re not anywhere near me.

Too restless to sleep anymore, I shake a layer of frost off my blanket and pack up, only to find that the ankle I turned yesterday has swollen significantly. There’s a nasty purple bruise all along one side. It holds my weight, but hurts something awful to do it. I’m forced to spend the first hour of the morning ripping my socks into makeshift bandages and soaking them in snow, all while my stomach complains of its emptiness.

Once I’m finally moving again, I’m slow as a slug, forced to favor the staff to take off the excess weight. I don’t think the sprain is that bad, but it could last a couple of days. If I survive that long. It’s colder now than yesterday, more wintery. Dark gray clouds roll in from all sides of the sky. Despite the sparse snow that lingers on the ground, there’s not a sign of meat, not a single track or feather, not even the passing glimpse of a raven or crow. The woods are barren. Empty.

On the bright side, nestled in between all the trees are hidden bushes and shrubs heavy with winter berries, if you know where to look. They aren’t the sort that get sold in capitol stores – no strawberries or blackberries or even current – but there are bearberries and twisted stalk and salal and fairy bell, some I recognize from the edible plants booth at training and others I’ve eaten with Jamie back in 23. None of them have the sort of nutrients you need to last indefinitely, but for a few days…maybe.

So as I stumble up the mountain, I eat a few from every plant I recognize to settle my grumbling stomach. I fill the extra half-gallon bag with handful after handful of the best-tasting, though I have to be careful, since a lot of them will make you sick if you eat too many at once, and a few are even poisonous in the wrong combinations.

I consider going deeper into the woods to uncover more, thinking that perhaps the Gamemakers decided to favor foragers this round and have hidden caches of the finest berries in the dark woods as a reward for the brave. But I’m brought up short, because every time I turn my eyes to the deeper glens I catch a glimpse of something huge moving slowly through the shadows.

The first massive, five-clawed paw print that I stumble into seals the deal. I will sooner face the hunger and cold than whatever monster is hiding in these trees.

The only plants that I don’t sample in my trek are the strange berries, the ones that don’t resemble anything I’ve ever seen before. These are the most numerous by far, their thorny bushes nestled alongside other trees, their roots intertwined. I think they might be parasites, leaching off their host-plants like mistletoe. It would explain how they manage to grow so lush even in the shade of other trees.

Each bush hangs heavy with fruits as big as blackberries, though perfectly round and smooth. They come in a variety of colors, from candy-apple red to deep purple-black, united only by their bushes, which share the same glistening black leaves and sharp, deadly-looking thorns.

I won’t deny: the berries look delicious, plump and ripe and full of sweet juice that I can just imagine bursting across my tongue when I bite in. But I had my fill of making myself ill sick with strange berries back when I was a kid, first working out the basics of foraging without my da. My luck was with me then, since I only ever got a bit of nausea and a fever, but I’ve heard stories of Capitol-made mutation plants from the war that can kill before they even reach your stomach.

So, as tempting as the strange berries look, I leave them where they are.

By the time the light starts to fade, my pouch is full and I’ve reached the edge of the tree-line, where it’s too high on the mountain to support lumber. The woods give way to sheer cliffs of rock some forming makeshift paths that curl up through sheer and jagged faces. As I cross onto the first path, it begins to snow – only tiny flakes for now, drifting in the wind, but I’d bet my pack that it’ll come down heavy soon enough.

Even though I know it can’t be nighttime yet and that the lack of light is only because of the clouds, I don’t want to be exposed on the mountaintops when the real fall starts up. Snow looks pretty, but it’s not to be taken lightly. It can help you if you know how to use it. It can also kill you if you don’t respect its power.

On the first ridge above the trees, I find a nook between three rocks just large enough for me and my pack and my staff. Draping the heat-reflecting cloth over the three nearest boulders creates a makeshift tent to keep me dry. I secure three of the edges from the outside with rocks, trusting the snow to provide enough cover for decent camouflage within the hour, though I’m careful to leave a little space at the top and bottom to let in air. Nearby I find a nest of crowberries and strip it clean, packing two big handfuls into the largest metal cup along with a layer of snow, since they’re better frozen than fresh. The next-largest cup is filled with fresh snow and brought under the cloth with me to melt.

The last thing I pull up before settling in my little makeshift tent is a fallen branch from one of the trees, to give myself something quiet to do. By that point the snow falls in thick flakes and shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. Under the cloth, it’s not exactly warm, but it’s better than being out in the wind and grows gradually warmer as my breath and body heat are reflected back.

After that, all I can do is wait out the storm. I pack a bit of snow around my swollen ankle and prop it, busying myself with taking apart Pitch Black’s arrow. It’s almost entirely made of metal and, in my hands, is more useful in pieces than it is whole. The cold black shaft is strong. Could come in handy later. Detached from it, the sharp head makes a decent makeshift knife. The thin feathers – which probably have a different name, but hell if I know what it is – are basically useless, but I tuck them away anyhow. Waste not want not, after all.

I munch on the berries and spend a few hours using the arrowhead to scrape the bark from the branch I found, trying to think of something useful to whittle it into, though nothing comes to mind. When it’s so dark I can’t even see my hands the anthem finally comes and, though I lift the blanket’s edge and clear as large an air-hole as I dare, I can barely see the screen through the heavy snow.

There’s only one dead today: the girl from District Seven. I should feel bad. I do feel bad, but there’s also a part of me that hopes she died fighting, not from the cold. Without bloodshed, the Capitol will get restless, and then they’ll turn the Arena on the rest of us.

I don’t realize that I’m falling asleep until it happens, the utter darkness beneath my cover of cloth and snow indistinguishable from the black of sleep. It’s no more comfortable than it was last night, but now I am somewhat warm and fed and exhausted. The nightmares come again.

I dream that I’m back in the glass tube being carried up through layers of black earth to the Cornucopia. Only this time the glass doesn’t go away. I’m trapped, unable to move from my circle, pinned on my metal plate by invisible walls.

I see Solstice on her platform, clearer and closer than she should be. She stares right at me, unblinking. She holds her hands in front of her, palms up, cradling the little wooden ball. That same wooden ball that slips from her and falls to the ground and it surely it can’t be enough to set off the bombs, except that it is and time slows to a crawl as it tumbles through the air. Only it doesn’t, because it’s still in her hands and why is there a second ball, why?

In the moment before it hits the ground Solstice’s eyes meet mine. Only they’re not Solstice’s anymore. They’re Emma’s, brown and wide and scared.

Before the ball can hit the ground, before the mines can explode, before my sister goes up in a pillar of smoke, a scream tears me out of the dream. It takes me a horrified moment to realize that it’s not mine. It’s coming from outside, muffled by a layer of snow so thick my makeshift tent hangs low over my head.

My first instinct is to burst up and help whoever’s screaming, but I manage to reign that in. What if it’s a trap? It’s still black as coal beneath my tarp, but that might only be because of the snow, which is so high now that both of my air holes are mostly buried. I roll over onto my stomach and dig out the bottom, letting in the barest weak light of dawn.

I press my ear to the ground, peering out through the hole onto a world of white. We must have gotten three or four inches last night, the entire mountainside’s been completely covered. Even my tracks are gone. There aren’t any more screams, but I do hear pounding footsteps that grow louder by the second. Someone’s running towards me. Someone heavy and scared.

My heart pounds in my chest. Beyond the footsteps, so far back that I can barely hear through the snow, multiple voices whoop and shout. I’m suddenly aware of how loud my ragged breathing has become and cup a hand over my mouth to smother the sound.

Footsteps ever closer. A thump as the victim – a boy, from the sound of his breathing – slips and hits the ground. He gets back up, scrambling over rocks slick with ice and snow.

_Please go away. Please go away. Please, lead them anywhere else, just away from here…_

Another scream, this time right on top of me and in tandem with a sickening noise halfway between a snap and a squelch. On the edge of the ridge, just within my field of vision, a body hits the ground: the boy from District Eleven.

He’s one of the larger tributes, solid and broad-shoulders like my mentors and their fellow cattle-men. His impact is like a falling trees, spilling snow in all directions. He howls in pain, briefly clutching for his leg before raking his arms over the rocks, trying to drag himself further on. The snow around him quickly becomes stained with flecks of red and pink from the many cuts and wounds that mar his dark skin. Despite the cold, he’s dripping sweat.

I’m sure then that the Career pack has been chasing him for hours, probably for most of the night. And now I’ve got a front-row seat to their big kill.

Before the victim can pull himself up he’s snagged by a net that’s as much metal as it is twine. I recognize its wielders’ voice as that of the Career boy from District Four. His partner and the girl from Two are not far behind.

I lay perfectly still, hoping and praying that the heavy snow will keep me hidden. I cannot save Eleven. I have no weapons, no strength, and no skill to match the danger of the Careers. My only hope is to be unseen, unfound. I count the footsteps, expecting more to follow, but it’s only the four of them – no sign of either Career from District One. Are North and Tooth really not part of their pack? Or are they back at the Cornucopia, guarding its spoils from prying hands?

“Finally!” says the girl from District Two, striding towards the captive as he struggles in his net. “It’s about time. Let’s stick this pig already.”

Before she can drive whatever weapon she holds into the District Eleven boy, a taller someone in thick black boots steps in, cutting her off. “Now now Onyx,” says the voice of Pitch Black. “We agreed. Tests first. Kills later.”

Hearing him so close sends tremors down my spine. I grip the staff with my free hand and, slow as I can manage, begin toeing off my untied boots. If I’m discovered here, my only chance will be to run. If that means abandoning my supplies, then that’s the lesser of two evils.

The boy from Eleven continues to struggle, his fingers tearing futilely at the net that’s holding him down. The girl from Four kicks his leg wound, earning a howl of pain, while her partner shoves him over on his back. Pitch pins him there with a foot right on the rib cage and crouches low enough that I can see his face even from the low angle of my hole.

“There now. It’s all right.” He pats the captive’s cheek with a mocking smile, carefully selecting a tiny pouch from the belt at his waist. “No need to fuss. We’re going to have a little fun.”

He undoes the rope of the tiny velvet pouch, dumping three of the strange round berries into his waiting palm. These are the darkest variety, black-purpled and heavy with juice, a bit of which stains Pitch’s pale hand.

He lowers them to the lips of the District Eleven boy. When the captive refuses to open his mouth the District Two girl – Onyx – gleefully brings her weapon, a mace, down somewhere beyond where I can see, drawing a scream as bones snap. Pitch pops in the berries and shoves the boy’s mouth closed, forcing him to choose between swallowing them and choking to death. He swallows.

They wait.

Within five minutes, the boy from District Eleven is breathing hard. Even pinned as he is, his chest rises and falls, lifting Pitch’s knee with every gasp. His eyes are so wide I can see the whites even from my side angle. His arms and legs begin to twitch violently, grasping for a none-existent purchase on the cold, wet stone.

The boy from District Four snorts in disappointment. “What a rip. So the junk isn’t poisonous at all.”

 “Of course it is.” Pitch’s voice drips with disgust at his own comrade’s stupidity. He leans so far over the boy from Eleven that I can see the tip of his long gray nose hovering inches from the captive’s face. Pitch snaps his fingers a few times, then trails them in front of his victim’s eyes. A wicked grin curls across his bottom lip.

“He’s hallucinating,” he says, as though savoring a sweet desert. “Completely lost in it, I’d say. You probably can’t even understand what I’m saying, can you?”

He grinds the heel of his boot against the captive’s ribcage. The boy from Eleven sputters with pain, but no real words come out, only nonsense syllables of uncontrolled fear.

“Interesting,” says Pitch Black, smiling wide. “Very interesting indeed.”

What follows is the most horrible thing I’ve ever witnessed. Worse than watching Solstice die. Worse than watching my father die. At least those were quick, a snap and a boom and they’re over. This. This lasts. For _hours_.

Pitch systematically tests each and every one of the strange berries’ varieties in different doses, waiting long enough between each for them to run their course before moving onto the next. When the individual tests are done he moves on to mixing berries, then to squeezing the juices into open wounds.

While he’s muttering to himself about side effects and nuances, his three pack-mates wander hither and yon, sometimes scouting ahead, sometimes wandering back to the woods, and sometimes lingering near to taunt their trapped victim in his pain-and-horror-trapped stupors. Meanwhile I lie mere feet away, hidden by only a layer of snow, paralyzed in desperation. I’m certain, every time a foot wanders too near, that I’m about to be found and tortured and killed.

But I never am. By the sweet miracle of pure luck, none of the pack ever brushes the snow from my hiding place, never trips over the place where my cloth meets the ground, and never tries to sit on the supposedly snow-covered bolder I’m huddled below.

To his credit, the boy from Eleven stays strong for longer than I can imagine myself doing in the same situation. He only breaks his silence once the sun has risen and he’s taken at least one of every twisted fruit at Pitch’s disposal. Then he begins to speak. He babbles. He screams. He struggles. He cries.

And it just. Keeps. Going.

Finally – _finally_ – after hours upon hours, well into mid-morning with the sun bright in the sky, Pitch declares his curiosity satisfied and steps away, washing his hands of the fate of the boy from District Eleven. The rest of the pack closes in, eagerly debating the best way to end his life, now that he’s too lost in his own fearful vision to so much as struggle.

Me, I lay curled in the dark, hands clamped over my ears in a failed attempt to drown out the sound of torture. The final canon shot comes with a surge of relief so strong I would sob if I wasn’t still paralyzed with the instinct not to be found.

When I dare to peek out again, the body of the boy from District Eleven is gone – I guess they must have dumped him over the ledge. Sure enough, the silent hover craft appears from nowhere just over the lip of the rock. It descends, gathers the body, and vanishes once more as the Career pack looks on.

With the pair from Four now complaining of hunger, the pack idles back the way they came, down the winding mountain trail to whatever base camp they must have founded between here and the Cornucopia. Pitch Black lingers behind and, for a terrible moment, I think he’s going to yank my cover away. But he merely begins to hum a strange tune and follows after his pack with the lazy air of a leader who knows they can’t and won’t go far without him.

I lay statue-still until their footsteps fade. When they are well away, I continue laying statue-still, because if they’re lingering anywhere near the tree line they will see me and Pitch will pick me off with his arrows before I’ve ever got my footing. I lay still until my bones ache and the cold seeps into my skin.

Then I’m on my feet, bursting from the snow in one fell swoop. If the Gamemakers hadn’t clued the audience in on my presence during the torture, I’m sure they’re focusing on me now. The wind echoes the gasps of a hundred Capitol viewers startled by the shocking twist.

The path down the mountain riddled with the tracks of the four Careers and their doomed prey. I gather my supplies in record time and sprint in the opposite direction, using the staff to fling myself over rocks and boulders without care for the ice or my own ankle, even though it throbs with pain. The only thing that matters now is putting as much distance as possible between myself and those monsters in human form.

Whatever happens for the rest of the Games, I cannot not let Pitch Black take me alive. 


	9. Moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! I plotted, wrote, rewrote, re-plotted, re-rewrote, and re-re-plotted this chapter at least five frickin’ times. It was a real pain…and yet, I’m glad I did it, because the end result was that this first scene is one of my favorites so far. Apologies nonetheless for the wait!

After that, I think that I must have gone into shock. The next thing I know, I’m huddled in darkness, staring up at the Capitol seal. The anthem echoes through the night. My stomach bemoans its emptiness. My tongue, in search of moisture, clings to the roof of my mouth. 

An entire day has passed me by. I don’t even know where I am, only that it is cold and dark and I hope beyond hope that I am alone. My body aches like a single giant bruise. The stones beneath my bare feet are wet and freezing. My supplies weigh on my shoulders, pinned in by the cloth, which is wrapped around me like a cocoon.

The only death today is the boy from District Eleven. I close my eyes, blocking out the memory of his torture. When the anthem finally fades I am left with another sound: the rumbling of water over rocks somewhere very close by. I have rediscovered the river. I should drink from it. I should move. I should do something, anything, but my body won’t respond.

Maybe this is better. Maybe I should stay here until I die of dehydration. It’s peaceful and bound to be less painful than falling into Pitch Black’s hands. And then I could go home.

Home.

I want to go home.

The thrum of the river wraps around my mind like the roar of the crowd on Capitol streets. It echoes like the explosion that ended Solstice’s pain, like the snap of my father’s neck at the end of his rope, like the beat of my heart and the beep beep beeping of a…of a…

I open my eyes because that beeping is not in my mind. It’s real, soft but steady in time with the light of a silver parachute descending from the clouds.

A gift from a sponsor!

I lurch to my feet, struggling to break free of the cloth. The staff takes my weight as I stumble forward, grasping in the dark. I slip into the icy water, yelp, and bound onto the nearest rock, hopping from shadow to shadow through the night. I snatch the parachute in one hand and nearly fell again, but the balance that earned my training score serves me well, catching me with the help of the staff.

Inside the knotted cloth is a log of soft white just large enough to fill my palm. Cheese. I bring it close and fill my nose with its heavy scent. It’s unmistakable. Goat cheese.

Once, days ago, Psyche and the preps chattered to me of comfort food – a very Capitol idea. No District citizen could dream of each just to make themselves feel better. But now I understand. The first tart, salty mouthful scooped on two fingers takes my breath away. I hold it on my tongue for as long as I can stand, its creamy flavor working all the way down my ragged nerves to repair every frayed and broken end.

Home. It tastes like home. My mother’s work, my sister’s love. It’s so amazing I could cry.

It comes as a laugh instead, loud enough to echo, but I don’t care who hears. I lift my face to the sky just as the moon breaks through a cloud, illuminating my smile.

“Thank you. All of you.” My mother. The Bennetts. Village 23. All of District Ten. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people must have gone without to pool enough funds to send me this, right when I needed it most.

I expected that night to dream of Pitch Black, come to hunt me down. But I don’t. I dream of home. And it is beautiful. 

* * *

The next morning, I find my feet blistered and bleeding. However far I ran yesterday, it must have been over some rough terrain. Even wracking my brain I can’t remember any of the flight. Blind terror. Whatever sponsors I had beyond District Ten have likely abandoned me, thinking that I’ve gone mad like the girl last year who only survived because she could swim. I’ll have to prove them wrong in the days to come.

At least I didn’t run downhill – quite the opposite. My safe haven is the first step of a two-tiered waterfall tucked into the mountain peaks. The first cascade falls from thirty feet above my head, feeding into a shallow pool and a series of rapids before dropping off the edge. The fall from there is even further, so high that it reminds me of the view from my balcony in the Training Center. The end result hides in the trees.

I rest here the whole day, soaking my feet in the frigid pool. It’s a few degrees short of freezing, but that’s not much worse than the river at home, so it’s almost comfortable to strip down to my boxers and bathe away three days’ worth of blood and grim.

I eat another quarter of the goat cheese with a side of mixed berries, then fold the remaining half in its silver parachute for another day. The sky steadily clears as the day goes by, giving me a clear view of half the Arena from the edge of my perch. Mountains, trees, and the winding river spread before me, extra moisture pooling into lakes and bogs. I even pick out the Cornucopia, gleaming like a silver coin in the noon-day sun.

Night and the anthem brings only the Capitol seal. No one has died today. I settle in for the night with my staff and my bag, resolved to move on at first light. Two trails lead from my location in opposite directions. Perhaps I’ll follow one until I reach the end of the Arena. I’ve heard that a Victor did that once, ages ago. Maybe whatever worked for him will work for me.

I jolt awake mere hours into a dreamless sleep and, at first, am unable to figure out why. The moon hangs full and painfully bright in a sky full of stars, illuminating the Arena. I look for opponents but find no one, not a footprint or a scrap of cloth to be seen.

Then, I spot the cloud.

It creeps from the summit like a living creature, silver-white tendrils of sparkling mist creeping and crawling down the stones, grasping at the moisture in the air. Under its touch, the waterfall freezes instantly, the ice cracking and groaning at the sudden change.

I sweep the cloth into my bag and leap up, wide awake. Everything within that cloud freezes solid. If it catches me, I’ll be a statue. I run for the nearest path, only to find my way blocked after only a few feet – a second front of the cloud works its way up the trail, coating the dirt with ice. I double back, using the staff to vault across the rapids and dive down the second path, but it’s no good. That one’s cut off too. I’m trapped!

I back away, staff raised as though that’s going to protect me. The deadly cloud creeps ever closer, herding me towards the edge of the falls.

Why? Why are the Gamemakers doing this? Tricks like this are used to drive the Tributes together for a fight, they only kill if you’re not quick enough to get away. What’s the point of driving me over the edge?

I risk a glance behind. The drop’s as dizzying as ever from here. Water plummets straight down for hundreds of feet, churning white against sheer stone. Even if it’s not solid rock down there I’ll never survive the fall.

Then I spot it. Jutting from the stone a dozen feet below, a mix of wood and metal with shattered ends. Train tracks. A tunnel? All the way up here?

The cloud is only inches away. Frozen air bites at my toes, my fingers, the skin of my face. It’s now or never.

I drop.

For a second the world flies by, then my feet catch the ledge, jarring my half-healed ankle. I throw my weight at the wall of rock, grasping for a handhold, but there’s nothing. I tumble forward into darkness and land flat, staff, supplies, and all.

As I thought – a tunnel! It burrows into the mountainside like termites through a block of wood. I scramble deeper in on all fours, just feet ahead of the cloud, which continues to swallow the mountain whole. It creeps into the hole on moonbeams, but only reaches a few feet in, dragging moisture from the air to block up the entrance with ice.

I catch a final glimpse of the moon, pure and bright overhead. Then the ice fogs over and it’s gone.

* * *

Darkness. That’s all I’m left with, shadows and silence and stagnant air. With nowhere else to go I follow the tunnel deeper into the mountains, using my staff to probe the darkness ahead so I don’t stumble into walls. 

I lingered by the entrance at first, hoping that the sun would melt the ice, but nothing changed. Even if it did, where would I go? Straight down? So I walked, and now I’m still walking, with no way to tell how long I’ve been at it or how deep the tunnels really go. I’ve taking dozens of turns, favoring left corners when I have the choice in hopes of keeping some constancy in my blindness. Sometimes the ground seems to slope up, but mostly it only continues the endless spiral down into the black.

For the first stretch of time – hours, I’m sure – I keep quiet, straining my ears for any sound. If the Gamemakers wanted me here, that means there must be other tributes lurking in these tunnels. But the silence is maddening. I can’t stand it. To fill the air with something besides my own breathing, I sing the first thing that comes to mind, a sort of nursery rhyme told to children before they go to bed:

_Night lights, bright lights,_   
_With sweet dreams to bestow,_   
_Burn bright, all night,_   
_And guard us ‘til they go._

_Night lights, bright lights,_   
_The moon and stars and sky,_   
_Burn bright, all night,_   
_But never tell us why._

_Night lights, bright lights,_   
_Keep to the skies above,_   
_And burn bright, all night,_   
_To remind us of your love._

It’s such a simple thing, childish and lilting, but with no other distraction I start to overthink it. I’ve always wondered who the ‘your’ is supposed to be in the last line. Missus Bennett insists that the song is meant to be sung by the children to their parents, but Mama sometimes spoke of a time before Panem when people believed in a great Good Thing that watched over the world, who would guard individuals from harm if you believed in its love. If there ever was such a thing, I wonder what people did to it make it leave the world. It was probably awful. 

I sing the rhyme three times all the way through, listening to it echo off the tight, unseen walls of my endless maze. Before I start a fourth round, light flashes around a distant corner. I throw myself into the nearest wall and hold my breath. Footsteps. Two sets. Every moment brings them closer, their light bobbing in the darkness.

I could run…but no. I need that light. Otherwise I’ll be lost down here forever. I have to fight, if only for a moment. If I can just knock them down and steal the light, I’ll run before they have the chance to get me.

Pulling the staff close, I edge to the corner between me and the other Tributes. There’s definitely two sets of footsteps, but only one person talking, all in low murmurs as though afraid to be overheard. I don’t have time to think about it. As they reach the corner, I beat them to the meeting, using the staff to propel my body into the highest, hardest kick I can muster.

Bunny from District Seven drops a flashlight and throws up his arms to block my kick. Hitting them is like hitting a log.

“Heads up!” he shouts to whoever he’s with. He takes a swipe at me, barely missing my feet as I tumble away. I drop onto my good ankle and grab for the light, sweeping my staff at his legs. He jumps over it and flings one of the blunt weapons he claimed from the Cornucopia. It misses, but remembering the Training Center I hit the deck. When it doubles back, it misses my skull by inches.

Pressed against the dirt, I finally see Bunny’s partner, the tiny yellow-haired boy with golden-brown eyes wide in horror. “Sandy…?”

My second of hesitation is all that Bunny needs. He kicks me hard in the stomach, knocking the air from my lungs. I snatch my staff. Quick as a flash, he’s on it too, hauling me from the floor and pinning me to the wall, my shoulders and hands trapped by my own staff. I kick as hard as I can with both legs, but Bunny’s abs are rock-solid. He doesn’t even flinch. He presses a knife black into my throat.

“Figured you’d sneak up on us, eh Ten? Should’ve thought that out a bit more. I could take you down with both hands tied behind my – what _is_ it Sandy?”

A faint ringing finally interrupts his rant. Sandy has a little bronze cup with a sealed lid tied to his right arm. When he shakes it, something inside rattles like a bell. With Bunny’s attention won, he squeezes into the space between us, patting me down from collar to hips. He unzips my coat and turns one side out, focusing the flashlight one what he’s found: Da’s clasp. I’d almost forgotten that it was there.

Bunny stares at it, his knife never wavering from my throat. “No way.”

Sandy bobs his head in a frantic nod.

“I was told four.”

I squirm, trying to squeeze a hand free of his hold. Bunny presses the staff more firmly into my collar, pushing hard enough to bruise and keeping me trapped.

“Nah, this is some kinda trick. It makes no sense to change up the plan at the last minute. Why would he do it?”

What is he rambling about? Sandy frowns and motions with his hands, up and down and side to side, his fingers flying almost like he’s trying to fly.

“I’m telling you, mate, it’s a trap.”

“Look,” I snap, my nerves too frayed to listen any longer. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”

Bunny’s jaw clicks shut. He glares at me, green eyes heavy and unreadable in the tunnel’s gloom. I swallow hard, painfully aware of the blade at my neck. If this is the end, well. At least it wasn’t Black who did me in.

“Just…just make it quick. For my sister’s sake.”

Bunny sighs through clenched teeth. He lowers the knife. “I’m not going to kill you, dummy.”

With a yank, he releases the staff and lets me fall to the ground. My feet stumble, sending me to my knees. Bunny sniffs and turns his back, stuffing the knife away in his belt. “Have it your way, sandy. Ten, grab your gear. You’re coming with us.”

I can’t have heard that right. “Say what?”

“It’s a maze down here,” says Bunny, taking the flashlight from Sandy and re-shouldering his own pack, which is much smaller than mine despite all her took from the Cornucopia. “Wander blind on your own and you might find your way topside. Either that or you’ll lose your sense and starve down here mad as a bag of cats. You want to take your chances, that’s your business. You want to live, you come with us.”

Sandy takes my hand, patting my arm supportively. I let him help me up. His eyes linger on my feet, taking note of how I’m favoring one ankle. Stuck like this, I don’t have any other option. What do these two get out of helping me?

“Sandy,” I say, whispering to avoid more time with Mister Grumpy McRabbit. “Just what is going on?”

In silent response, Sandy holds out a gold-plated coin inscribed with a crescent moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first verse of Jack's nursery rhyme here is Nightlight's song to little MiM in the _Man in the Moon_ picture book, reworked to be third-person instead of first (Nightlight's singing about himself.) Hunger Games has some great songs in its pages so I wanted to capture that mindset, even if I can't do poetry to save my life.


	10. Guardians and the Man in the Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uuugh. I am so sorry that this chapter took so long. Family matters came up that pushed fanfic’ing and fandom life in general to the wayside. Hopefully this ridiculously long chapter (which just kept growing and growing and growing…) will make up for it. 
> 
> By the way, this chapter contains…uh, I guess you’d call it fake-shipping? Play-shipping? Distraction-shipping? The act of pretending to be sexually attracted for non-sexual purposes…?
> 
> …my critique group once dubbed me “Queen of the Purposefully Uncomfortable Kiss Scene.” That should sum it up. Enjoy.

Right. Left. Right. Right. Center fork. Left. 

After that, I lose track of our turns and veers, forced to drift in Bunny’s wake with no sense of place or direction in the endless dark maze. The light he carries highlights just how complex the network really is, how many turns we don’t take and tunnels we avoid. With all these dozens of possibilities, I must have been wandering in circles down here since dawn.

Not that I know how long that’s been. The damp earth muffles everything, even our footsteps and breathing. The only light remains in Bunny’s hands. However far we are underground, I doubt that we’ll be able to hear the canons or the anthem. Pitch’s pack of nightmares could slaughter all of our fellow competitors today and we’d never even know.

If that thought bothers Bunny, he doesn’t let it show. He takes long breaths of the heavy air and keeps the flashlight steady in his right hand. His left, which is bare save for a knotted bracelet of rough wooden beads, traces the packed dirt and wooden beams of the tunnel walls. It’s like he’s looking for something, but I neither see nor feel anything of the sort.

Sandy, of course, has nothing to say. Occasionally, his hand finds mine in the dark. He grasps it gently and pats my knuckles, full of silent reassurances that our path is sound.

I’m just starting to question that when we enter a long tunnel with no branching paths, only a slight curve that arches down and a light in the distance. I hear voices up ahead, a conversation, but it’s too soft to be understood.

Bunny brings his left hand to his mouth and whistles the piercing two-note trill echoes down the tunnel, silencing the conversation ahead. After it fades, a second whistle answers, matching the two notes exactly.

_‘It’s us,’_ says the first call. _‘Stand down.’_

_‘Safe return,’_ says the answer. _‘Welcome home.’_

We round the curve. The sudden blaze of light blinds me, even though it only comes from three electric lanterns that barely offer enough to see. A voice from the light bellows with deep-chested laughter. “Ah-ha!” it says. “Jack Frost! We wondered what had become of you.”

I recognize the laugh before I see its owner, freezing in my tracks. In the heart of a small, vaguely egg-shaped chamber, the District One male Tribute – North – perches on a plastic locker like a king upon his throne. His sleeves are rolled up past his elbows and his jacket dangles around his neck like a cape. Two gleaming sabers dangle from his belt.

He crosses the chamber in two long strides and clasps me on the back so hard it nearly bowls me over. Then he grins at Bunny, all handsome dimples and rosy cheeks. “Well done, Bunny. It is about time we found him. And here I thought you weren’t looking.”

“I wasn’t,” Bunny snorts, slinging the bag off his shoulder. “And neither was _he_.”

There’s a bite in the word, an accusation. Before I can ask I’m seized again by smaller hands and dragged closer to one of the lanterns. A pair of huge violet eyes fill my vision, sparkling like jewels. Iana Tooth, North’s District partner, lights up like the flame on a candle.

“Hello Jack! It is _so_ good to finally meet you face to face. I am so sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk during the training, but everyone was so busy and you seemed so focused I didn’t want to bother you. Oh! But you must be starving, I mean, look at you. We’ve only been here four days and you’re already skin and bones. Let me get you something to eat.”

She darts off again before I can get a word in edgewise, flitting off to the many bags that line the chamber walls. The reality of her leaves me speechless. Tooth played up cute and flighty at her interview with Flickerman, but I never imagined that to be what she’s really like. How does anyone go through a lifetime of training to be a killer and come out like that?

From their stores, Tooth pulls cooking fuel, a bottle of water, and one of many identical-looking packages in olive-green plastic. My first instinct is to reject the offer. I don’t want to owe these people anything. But then she cracks open the package. I catch a whiff of something like spices and my stomach growls.

It is the Hunger Games, after all. I’d be stupid to turn down a meal.

I expect someone, Bunny at least, to object to Tooth giving away their supplies so easily. Yet, all the towering lumberjack does is sniff and fold his arms over his chest, sending North a green-eyed glare.

“I was told four,” he says, echoing what he said to Sandy in the tunnels. “No more, no less. WE got no reason to think the plan’s changed.”

“We have reason enough,” says North, slightly softer now that he’s being more serious. “He volunteered. He has solid abilities. He has _it_ , does he not?”

He glances to Sandy, who nods. What I would give for him to be capable of speaking with me. He’s bound to have a better explanation than these two posturing tough guys trying to talk overhead.

“ _And_ he came to us,” continues North as though landing a critical argument that makes some kind of sense. “That should settle that.”

“Except that he didn’t come to us,” says Bunny. “He attacked us. Figured he’d rob us blind and wander lost in the tunnels for lord knows how long –”

“Hey, I wouldn’t even be down here if it wasn’t for the Gamemakers!”

I don’t know what makes me speak up. Maybe I’m just sick of being talked over like an object, like I’m not there. Bunny and North both look to me, the former annoyed, the latter curious. North strokes his beard which has, in our four days here, grown beyond its trimmed and even boarders.

“What do you mean, they brought you down here?”

I swallow my nerves, idly swinging the staff for something to look at the besides their faces. Screw it. What have I got to lose? “I’ve been up in the mountains since the Bloodbath. Last night a freezing cloud chased me off a cliff. I wound up here. Big whoop.”

North mouths ‘freezing cloud’ without speaking the words, tracing the shape of his lips with his hand. He pulls a rolled sheet of white bark – birch, I think – from an inside pocket in his coat, stepping to one side and unrolling it against the wall. It bears a rough, unfinished map of the Area in smudged black, which North adds to by rubbing a piece of charcoal against the white. Bunny joins him, his scowl still firm. They whisper heatedly, shoulders hunched to keep eavesdroppers at bay.

Sandy’s small but warm hands come to rest on my arm, stilling the staff’s restless swing. He herds me to Tooth and tugs until I sit down. A tarp, pinned by rocks and the plastic locker, forms a makeshift floor. Sandy, proving quite pushy for a mute, pulls and prods at me until both the staff and my bag are resting at my side. He coaxes my leg until it’s extended all the way, propping my wrapped ankle on a folded bag.

“Are you hurt?” asks Tooth, looking up from the pan of water she’s boiling on the cooking fuel. Her soft tone and busy hands remind me of my mother.

I turn my head away. “It’s just a sprain.”

Sandy rings his bell indignantly, his lips pressed tight. He brushes his fingers over my makeshift wrappings, judging the tightness of the wrap and the size of the swelling. When he squeezes right on the heel, pain shoots all the way up to my knee. I bite my lip to keep from yelping.

Sandy turns to Tooth and holds up three fingers. She coos sympathetically, stirring the contents of her plastic package into the roiling water. “Three days? You poor thing. And to think you climbed mountains with your weight on that. It must have been excruciating.”

Without thinking, I shake my head. The ankle hurts, for sure. It’s painful. But excruciating? No. Listening to the death of the District Eleven boy…that was excruciating.

A few minutes later, Tooth delivers the saucepan to my lap along with the tin spoon she was using to stir. The plastic package’s square of twigs and dust have become pasta in a lumpy red sauce. It’s grainy and bland and tastes absolutely nothing like the lunch I shared with Psyche in the capitol. It’s amazing.

Tooth hovers near me while I eat, lurking uncomfortably close. Every few minutes, she rubs her neck with her left hand, brushing feathery black hair away from her ear. A single golden earing gleams in her lobe, dangling beside the curve of her chin. Her Token, no doubt.

Violet eyes briefly flicker to the far side of the chamber, where North and Bunny continue to whisper. Occasionally, I catch a word of their muttering, something about plans and repeated references to ‘him,’ but none of it makes any sense.

The pasta pot is empty so far too soon. I’m just about to scrape the remnants with my fingers when Tooth clears her throat deliberately. “Jack,” she says gently. “Maybe I see your Token?”

Again with the interest in the Token. It made Bunny listen in the tunnel and now it draws North’s gaze briefly from his whispers.

A sudden urge surges within me, the thought to clutch my jacket close to the chest and refuse to open it to matter what they say. I can’t trust these people. They’re a pack, like Black’s. Tooth and North are Careers, trained killers. Like Pitch Black. Their interest in me is not good, not welcome, and I should not encourage it by indulging their whims.

This urge is strong, but in the end it fails. I want to understand. I need to know what’s going on.

Carefully, I dislodge the clasp from the inside of my coat and slip the pieces back together before handing it to Tooth. She cradles the snowflake close, her fingers tracing the shape of the crescent moon. Her earing glistens through a curtain of black hair and it’s only then that I notice the shape of the charm.

A crescent moon. Like Sandy’s coin. Like North’s tattoo. Like the largest of the hand-carved beads on Bunny’s wrist.

Like Da’s clasp.

The realization winds me. What do they think this means?

Tooth eyes me carefully, her words coming out slow and measured. “It’s lovely. I’d heard the rumors, but now I see they weren’t exaggerating. Wherever did you get such a beautiful piece in District Ten?”

“From my Da.” Saying that is painful. My throat threatens to close. I swallow, my spit still thick with the remnants of the meal. “He, uh. It was a hand-me-down. He wore it on special days. His wedding. When he died, it went to my sister. After the Reaping, she gave it to me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She fixes me. For a split second, the warmth in her eyes evaporates. They go cold and sharp, like blades of stone. “Are you _sure_?”

“Yes.” Of course I’m sure. I know my own father. “Yes, that’s all there is to it. Why does it matter? What’s going—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Tooth cuts me off with a sigh, pressing the clasp back into my hand. Then she’s smiling again, all bright and happy, her tone light as though she hadn’t a care in the world. “You’re right, of course. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, my daddy worked in loss prevention at the factory back home, and he used to drill into me how terrible it was that smugglers were stealing our hard work for profits in black markets. But now that I get a better look I see that this is definitely Outer District work. It truly is lovely, Jack. You should be proud to own it.”

It’s one of the most blatant lies I’ve ever heard. Tooth’s mother was a Victor. Her father might have worked in the factories prior to their marriage, but by the time Iana rolled around he would have been easily supported by her winnings. They must have known from childhood that Tooth would follow in her mother’s footsteps as a Career, they had no reason to grill her in security.

And yet, before I can get my thoughts together for a single question, a sharp tone echoing from the tunnels interrupts us both. Bunny perks up immediately, but Sandy beats him to it, grabbing the flashlight and hurrying up the tunnel from where we came. It takes a few more echoes before I finally register the sound as the signal of a silver parachute. Shortly thereafter, it goes quiet.

“Where the hell are we, anyway?”

The question leaves my mouth the same moment it enters my mind. I still have no idea what monstrosity I’m stuck in. Obviously, these four weren’t chased underground. Did they simply choose to camp out here, knowing that the slightest whim of the Gamemakers could make this their graves?

Bunny snorts, rolling his eyes like I’ve uttered the stupidest thing imaginable. “Mine tunnels,” he says. “Some old. Most new. They run all through the Arena. There’s a dozen ways in and out all over. Probably more, that’s just what we know for sure.”

“They make for excellent cover and reconnaissance,” adds North, that perpetual smile still firm on his face. “Many entrances have been well-hidden in the lower regions of the Arena. Those who concentrate their efforts on slaughter rather than survival have yet to uncover them. It gives us quite the advantage.”

The words ring true, but make little sense. How are he and Tooth focused on slaughter – they’re both Careers. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t, they’re District One. And how can Bunny recognize old and new mine tunnels? He’s from District Seven, they’re lumberjacks!

Sandy reappears from the tunnel, clutching the silver parachute in one hand. The moment he’d back in the light of the lanterns he drops the flashlight, freeing his hands to unwrap the knotted package. He reveals a black plastic something that looks a bit like a boot, only without the heel, toe or insole. The plastic is hard and unyielding, but there are pockets of electric blue gel lining the inside.

Tooth makes a delighted noise, taking the object from Sandy as he hurries over. “Oh, wonderful! Jack, this will be for you.”

“What?” Before I can protest she seizes my bad leg, holding the foot steady as Sandy pulls the wrappings from my ankle. Trying to pull away from them only sends another spike of pain up my leg. “But it _can’t_ be for me. I don’t have any sponsors.”

North picks up the cloth that Sandy had discarded, nodding. He shows it to Bunny, who scowls ever deeper, but throws his hands up in defeat. “All right, all right, I get it. He’s in.”

“In…?”

Tooth closes the object around my now-bare ankle, pulling cloth straps tight on either side of my heel. The moment the gel sacks touch my bare skin, relief rushes through me. The dull ache I’ve lived with since the Bloodbath vanishes in moments. All that’s left is a soothing chill like ice without frostbite.

A gasp falls from my lips before I can stop it followed by a satisfied groan. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to not feel pain. I lean back on my arms and stretch my legs all the way down to the toes. The brace keeps my foot from moving at the ankle or heel, but the relief is worth it. I could run in this without pain. I could climb. I could dance.

North chuckles, patting my shoulder as he strides by and drops the cloth into my lap. “That settles that then,” he says. “Welcome to the alliance, Jack Frost.”

He drops the cloth into my lap with casual disregard. It unfolds over my knees, revealing that it, too, bears the mark of the crescent moon.

* * *

 

No one speaks of the crescent moon.

Which isn’t to say that no one speaks, oh no. There’s plenty of talk going down. North spends ages spreading map after map over the foot locker, explaining to me how the Arena is laid out and where they think the tunnels run in excruciating detail. Tooth gives my ankle another once-over and rambles endlessly about how the brace isn’t meant for healing, only reinforcement and pain prevention, so I’ll have to be careful but of course it’s still so much better than before and…and…

It’s maddening. These two are nothing like that District One Careers I’ve seen in every other Games. They’re supposed to be refined but brutal, elegant in their kills, the sort who can wear blood as a fashion statement. But not these two. They might as well come from a different planet with their constant laugh and sweet-natured talk.

And the worst part is, I know it’s all an act. I saw that chill seep into Tooth’s eyes. I remember how stern North got in the elevator at the Training Center. They’re dangerous beneath this veneer of playful easy. They’re deadly. And they’re lying.

More than once, I look to Sandy for rescue or advice, but he’s no help. All he ever does is smile and gesture and ring his makeshift bell, occasionally punctuating the conversation with a sketch in the dirt. He never takes the slightest move to call off the two Careers, never looks uncomfortable or out of place, and half the time his interruptions are the very reason I never get in a word.

Bunny is no better, flitting in and out of the chamber on some sort of constant patrol. Occasionally he returns with an armful of mushrooms or tuber roots to add to their already-impressive supply stores. He speaks most with North, sometimes with Sandy occasionally with Tooth and never with me, glaring any time he comes near as though my existence is an insult.

Not one of them mentions the crescent moons or what they mean. No one speaks of how the alliance was formed or what its purpose is, or how they can all act so friendly when they’re from such vastly different Districts. And there is no talk of their unnamed patron, nor of why he or she would choose to lavish such an expensive present on me.

It takes me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why. These four, this alliance…they’re in hiding. Not from me. Not even from Pitch Black. No, they’re hiding from the Gamemakers. From the Capitol itself.

Even down here there are bound to be cameras. Hundreds of cameras. They’re probably nestled in every support beam and corner burrow, specially designed to turn even the lightless underground as bright as mid-day. Tiny microphones no doubt run along every vein of dirt, carrying our words back to the broadcast stations hidden well beyond the Arena.

Whatever the moon means, whatever these four are planning or plotting – they don’t want the Gamemakers to know. That only raises more questions and gives me more reason to escape the first chance I get. The last thing I need is to be wrapped up in some hair-brained scheme when they won’t even tell me what it is.

Throughout the…however many hours I’m stuck here…Sandy keeps stealing glances at a circle of metal on the end of a plastic strap. At first I think it’s a compass, but then I realize that it’s a clock, just before the golden-haired boy bounces up and starts waving his hands for everyone’s attention. The conversation stops immediately.

“It is time?” North asks, his expression serious. Sandy nods.

I look between them. The previous easy-going revelry has died, leaving only solemn faces and serious eyes. “What time?”

“Sundown,” says Bunny, digging up to his shoulder in one of the bags. “They’ll be playing the anthem soon. Someone has to go topside to check out.”

So I was right. We can’t hear the canons down here. The daily death toll is the only way to know how many of us are left.

Bunny’s hand re-emerges clutching a number of black plastic sticks. He counts them, then rolls them in his palm. “Right, we all know the drill. Short straw goes up.”

“Not tonight,” says Tooth, waving off his offer with a smile. “I’ll go.”

The other three glance at her, then at each other. I suppose that after lurking in a cave for four days the surface and the hunters who prowl it would seem like a nightmare. Yet Tooth merely folds her hands coyly behind her as she turns to me with a grin. “And, I’m taking Jack with me for back-up.”

North frowns, his hands resting on the hilts of his swords. “Are you sure, Toothy?”

“Of course.” Tooth leans in, her eyes bright and mischievous. “There’s this absolutely gorgeous patch of berries near one of the entrances in the low-lands. I’ve been eyeing them ever since we got here, but none of us know them well enough to guess which ones to pick. But you’ve been living off them, so you must know which are safe to eat, right?”

“Uh…” I could come up with a lie, but they found the sack of berries in my bag. I shrug. “I guess.”

“I’m craving something sweet.” Tooth whirls back to the other three, all cute smiles and coy batted eyes. “This way, we’ll kill two birds with one stone. We’ll go up, note the departed for the night, grab some berries and be back in, oh, a couple of hours. Simple, right?”

From the looks that North and Bunny exchange, I get the feeling that there’s more to this than what she’s saying. Still, North only shrugs and lowers his hands from the swords. “If you are certain…”

“I am!” Tooth yanks me up by the arm. She kicks the shepherd’s crook up off the ground, catches it, and pushes it into my hand. “Come on, Jack.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” That’s all I manage to get out before she grabs a light and drags me, stumbling, into the tunnels. 

* * *

 

The opening in question is nearer than I guessed it would be, which is good, because Tooth takes off running the moment she’s able and it’s only because of the brace and the staff that I’m able to keep up. Like Bunny, she drags a hand along the wall as she moves, but I don’t have nearly enough time to look for what they’re using to guide their way. It’s only when she kills the light and we step into the dim orange of a fading sunset that I realize she must have rushed to deny me my chance. I have no idea how we got up here. I’ll be reliant on her to get back down, and without my supplies I’ll have no chance on my own.

I’m stuck with her. Stuck with the alliance. I won’t be able to escape from them tonight.

Unlike my last ‘entrance,’ this opening to the tunnels looks almost natural: a cave with its entrance mostly blocked by a large bolder. Tooth slips through the gap as easy as breathing, but pauses halfway out, her arm extended to keep me behind the stone. With knife in hand she glances up, down, left, right, her ears turning to catch what her eyes can’t. Satisfied that we’re alone, she seizes my arm and drags me out of the tunnels.

The lack of warning leaves me stumbling through the underbrush. I catch myself with the staff and yank my arm from her grip. “I can walk you know.”

“I know.” Tooth winks and presses a finger to her lips. “But still. You’ll want to be quiet. You never know what could be out here.”

As if I need reminding.

Wherever we’ve surfaced in the Arena, it’s not an area I recognize. Deep in the woods, the thin but tightly-packed trees block any view of the mountains I might have used to orient myself. I hear no rushing water, only the rustling of branches in the wind – we must be far from the river. Through the branches, I see only the pale light of dusk fading quickly on the horizon.

Long shadows fall between the trees, masking our feet in darkness. Tooth pulls up the hood of her coat and nearly vanished on sight. She presses the finger to her lips again and leads the way, casually cradling a knife in one palm where she thinks I won’t see. She’s nearly silent in spite of the underbrush. I do her one better, sticking to the roots to avoid being caught or tripped. It shouldn’t satisfy me every time she glances back to make sure I’m there, but it does.

We arrive in the clearing of bushes and berries just as the anthem’s first strains float to us on the wind. There isn’t much space and the trees still block the horizon, but there’s a clear shot to the sky and the Capitol seal far overhead.

One dead today: the boy from District Nine.

I wonder, distantly, how he died. We’ve gone long enough now that it might have been the elements, but there’s so much water available here that thirst seems unlikely. Maybe it was exposure. Maybe he froze. Or maybe Pitch found him and he died miserable and screaming, like the boy from District Eleven.

Five days in. Thirteen dead. Eleven tributes left alive.

I glance at Tooth as the boy’s picture fades from the sky. To my surprise, she lowers her head and rests the fingers of one hand rest against her lips. Though I don’t recognize the gesture, it is undeniably a sign of respect for the dead.

After the image and the music fades, her hand comes to rest on mine. “Right then. Let’s get those berries.”

“Fine. Give me the light.”

“Oh, no.” I just barely make out her shaking head. “Too dangerous up here. We might be seen. Better to get close, like this.”

She drops, pulling me with her until we’re both on our knees and elbows. She seizes my staff and pushes it flat to the ground, sliding it alongside us as we begin to crawl. In one of the most ridiculous moves I’ve ever made, we shimmy through the many bushes and shrubs that fill this clearing, silent as we can manage, dodging sharp thorns and broken branches.

Two bushes in, I know something’s up. Half the clusters she shows me are market berries – mostly black and white current, but also blueberries, blackberries, and even a single precious vine of strawberries. District One, of all places, would know these. More telling, Tooth specifically guides me away from the knotted nest of thorns at the far edge, where a massive patch of deadly hallucinogens clings to the remnants of an ancient tree.

Around the center of the field, she suddenly stops. She rolls over on her back, turns her head to the sky, and whispers, “Oh.”

I look. With the sun fully set, the stars appear. They twinkle like candles in an endless navy sea, thin clouds crossing in and out of their paths like waves. The bright moon, now a little less than full, pokes through the gaps almost like it’s too shy to completely show its face.

Tooth sighs and reclines in the underbrush, taking no apparent note of either the plant life or the ground’s perpetual chill. “It’s beautiful,” she whispers, following the path of clouds across the moon. “We never see skies like this back home. It’s too urban. Too much light.”

It’s odd, but I suppose if I think back to the nights at the Capitol, she’s right. There was a single star out there, nothing like back home. That’s just one more way the Arena has to remind me of 10-23.

I roll the thought around a moment to indulge her, then sit up to give myself a bit of high ground for the next question. “You didn’t bring me out here for berries, did you?”

Tooth giggles, propping herself up on one elbow. She lifts the knife to the moonlight, then deliberately places in a bush nearby where I can see. “No,” she says, closing the distance between us. “I didn’t.”

The next thing I know, she’s trailing those deceptively delicate fingers up the line of my jaw, around the shell of my ear, and up into my hair. She grasps a lock, careful not to pull, and fans its tips so she can more clearly see. I’d almost forgotten how white it became after all Psyche’s work. Even stained with dirt, it sparkles in the light of the moon.

“This isn’t your natural hair color, is it?”

“I…no.” I cough to clear the awkward lump from my throat, pulling back a few inches on instinct. Tooth has gotten close. Too close. “My stylist dyed it before the parade.”

“It suits you.” She follows me, the underbrush whispering as she slides across it. Her fingers never stray far from my face. “It catches the light. Brings out the color of your eyes. Makes you sparkle and shine, just like the moon. Just like the stars…”

There’s a bush at my back. I’ve run out of room. Tooth draws close. Her violet eyes sparkle like gemstones in the silver light.

And then her lips capture mine.

I freeze up and instantly hate myself for it. This isn’t one of the barns back home, and this isn’t just any girl. She’s a Tribute, a Career. They use this strategy all the time!

My second’s hesitation is all she needs. Her hand grasps my jaw, holding my head still and easing open my mouth. Her other seizes my shoulder in a death grip and pushes me to the ground. I scramble for the staff to knock her off, only to find that she’s sitting on it, leveraging half her weight on the wood while the rest straddles my torso. I’m pinned.

The kiss grows deeper, fiercer, her tongue darting across mine. By the time I get the sense to bite down she’s already moved on, pushing my head to one side while she kisses her way up my jaw. I try again to throw her off, jerking my shoulders and swinging my legs in clumsy kicks that never find their target. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her knife, still dangling from the bush nearby.

Warm breath ghosts in a sigh over the shell of my ear. She presses closer than anyone has ever dared and whispers, “The crescent is the symbol of our sponsor, the Man in the Moon.”

She’s so soft and so gentle that I can barely hear the words over the pounding of my own heart. I hold my breath without thinking. This is it. The answers I wanted.

“He’s a prominent Capitol official with a lot of money at his disposal who has privately rejected the Hunger Games and everything they stand for.” Tooth sucks gently on a spot just below my ear. My entire body shudders with tingling warmth. “The Man in Moon is a codename. We call him MiM. He brought us together and formed our alliance as part of a plan to bring down the Games once and for all. But if you want to know more you’re going to have to start playing to the camera, Jack.”

_The camera…!_

My eyes dart to the half-hidden moon and glittering stars high over our heads. We are not alone. Unless there’s some fierce battle raging on the other side of the Arena, every feed from every available camera will be focused on us right now. The wind rustling through bushes and trees will be enough to hide the whispers from the microphones, and no one will think twice of a girl murmuring in her lover’s ear, but…

Emma. Jamie. The village. District Ten. All of them will see.

Tooth pushes away, gracefully arching her back as she extends her arms. She pouts, batting her eyelashes. They’re not the semi-transparent purple monstrosities from her Caesar Flickerman interview, but they’re still incredibly full and long. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like me?”

“I…”

The protest lodges in my throat, cutting off in a strangled squeak. I hesitate. My fingers curl into fists. This is my choice, then. Find out what’s going on, get the answers to all of my questions, or walk away.

…She really is beautiful, in the moonlight. Lovely and gentle and sharp as a blade.

I reach for her before I can change my mind, my hands curling around the back of her neck. “I do. It’s just that I…” My face goes hot. I cringe, averting my eyes and willing the blush to fade. “I’ve never done anything, um, like this. Before.”

“Really?” Tooth laughs, letting me pull her down so she can press her forehead to mine. “Gorgeous Jack Frost’s never kissed a girl?”

The indignation leaves me sputtering. “I’ve kissed plenty of girls!”

She has the nerve to quirk an eyebrow, her smirk identical to the one that Bunny gave me in the training center.

“…One girl. Once.” And it was nothing like this, because we were only eleven and playing around behind the schoolhouse, stealing quick pecks between giggles and knowing the teacher would tan both our hides if we got caught.

Tooth giggles again and snuggles closer, raking both of her hands through my hair. “That’s all right. I’ll show you the ropes.”

Then she’s kissing me again and my brain shuts down. My eyes close because that is – I think – what people are supposed to do when they’re making out. This time, instead of lying there like a dead fish, I try to match her movements and intensity. I’d say it’s a little like dancing, but I’ve only ever danced at the winter solstice festivals and I wasn’t very good at that either.

Thankfully, Tooth is not subtle. She breaks the kiss after a few seconds and presses into me, making a point of extending her neck. I take the hint, starting at the same place beneath her ear that got me the first time and working my way down to her shoulder in a series of slow pecks. I can only hope that it doesn’t look as awkward and clunky as I feel.

“Sandy was the first,” Tooth whispers, her lips practically brushing my ear. “MiM has many contacts in the Power industry and was a personal friend of Sandy’s father. He paid for the medical treatment that saved Sandy’s life. After that, they were friends. When he heard of MiM’s plan, Sandy volunteered to assist MiM’s cause in any way he could.”

I reach the edge of her coat collar and stop, uncertain of how to proceed. The nighttime temperature is dropping fast. Disrobing right now seems like a terrible idea, and I am so not going that far just for some answers. Tooth makes a satisfied noise and tugs at my hair, peppering feather-light kisses all down and then back up the side of my face. She sighs into my ear as I start working my way back up her neck, dragging it out as much as I can.

“After that, MiM contacted me and North in District One. He’d seen our scores at training, knew our histories. He guessed that we would agree with his mission, and he was right. When we signed up, he influenced the selection of our volunteers and arranged that Sandy would volunteer from Five the same year that North and I were selected from One. I don’t know when Bunny was brought on-board, but we were told to carry MiM’s symbol on our tokens. The crescent tells us who to trust.”

So that’s why. This whole mess of stalking me through training, bringing me into the alliance, pulling me out of the tunnels, it’s all a big…

“Mistake.” The word bubbles out louder than I intended, much louder than Tooth’s whispers. The microphones will have no trouble picking it up, but I can’t keep the babbling inside “It’s a mistake. I wasn’t…I’m not…”

“Shhhh.” Tooth cups my face in her hands, bringing our lips together again. The kiss this time is long and solid, like shelter in a storm. When we break for air she presses our foreheads together, holding my gaze. “You really don’t know how beautiful you are, do you? Such a silly boy.”

She leans the opposite way this time, her crescent moon earing brushing my cheek. Her arms wrap tight around my shoulders, tugging at clothes even as her legs loosen their grip on my torso.

“MiM has many allies in the tournament regulations committee. He would never have allowed your token through unless he intended for you to join our alliance. The ankle brace confirms it. He chose you, the same way he chose all of us. He wants us to help you, and you to help us. He knows you’re worth saving, he wants to keep you alive…”

She sighs dramatically, pulling at my jacket until the zipper opens and pulling down the collar of my shirt until she can reach the place where my shoulder meets my neck.

“Whatever happens here, MiM intends to invest his entire fortune in keeping us alive. He’ll send us medicine, food, anything we need to take care of ourselves and each other. Survival is our priority. We’ve all sworn only to defend. We will not take a single life unless all other possibilities are exhausted.”

I try to make my next move look like I’m smelling her hair, lowering my voice to the softest whisper I can manage. “That’s supposed to destroy the Games?”

Tooth smiles against my throat. “That’s the first part of the plan. Part two comes once those in our alliance are the only ones left in the Arena. But right now, we don’t have time to explain further. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because this is going to hurt.”

Sharp, brutal pain slices straight through my shoulder almost to the bone. I yelp, shoving Tooth away. This time, she not only lets me but sends herself flying, rolling into the underbrush like a sack of potatoes. A moment later she pops back up, face flushed bright red. She giggles.

“I’m sorry! Should I have warned you?”

“You…” I cup my hand to the place she’d been kissing moments before. Drops of warm blood stain my fingers, seeping up from broken skin. It’s not nearly life-threatening, but _still_. “You bit me!”

Tooth shrugs. “Everybody has their kinks. Want me to kiss it better?”

She reaches for me again. I pull away on instinct, which is apparently exactly what she wanted, because all she does is stop and pout playfully. “Aw. Once bitten twice shy, huh? Oh well.” She stands, making a big show of rolling her shoulders and brushing the mud from her pants. “We should probably get back to the others now anyway. Wouldn’t want the other boys to get worried now, would we?”

That bright and happy fake smile of hers will never stop being unnerving. Neither will her ease at switching between rolls, going from sultry seductress to innocent flirt in mere seconds, all while covering up her true intentions. I wonder if that’s what they really teach Career Tributes in their pre-Games training. I’m not sure if that would be better or worse than it being a natural talent.

Tooth thankfully keeps her distance while I’m pulling myself together, merely looking on with a hint of amusement as I tug my jacket closed and hoist myself up with the staff. She and I are both covered in berry juice. There are thorns in all of our clothes. My feet are scratched all to hell. Tooth makes a sympathetic noise when she notices, collecting her knife from the bush she’d hung it in before.

“You really should give those shoes another try,” she says lightly, tugging the flashlight from her pocket. “At this rate you’re liable to end up completely crippled even if you manage to…”

A cold wind blows across the clearing, carrying with a low and rumbling growl.

Tooth goes statue-still. Her knife snaps up into a battle stance, ready to attack or defend. I grip the staff with both hands, but I do not dare turn around. The growl came from behind me.

I suddenly remember the footprints I found on the second day. Those were the reason I didn’t dare search the woods for the best berries. This very same cache of the best berries, tucked away in the trees for exactly this purpose: to lead us in for the beast’s meal.

“Jack,” says Tooth, her words sharp, steady, and just soft enough to not set the creature off. “Turn around very, _very_ slowly.”

Holding my breath, I turn as slow as I dare. I catch a single glimpse of two beady silver eyes reflecting the light of the waning moon.

That’s all the warning I get before the monstrous shadow attacks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the cliffhanger evil. I swear to god the next chapter will not take nearly so long to complete.


	11. The Creature in the Woods

It’s a bear. The beast of the woods is a goddamn bear, and not just any bear either, but the biggest, meanest, nastiest bear I’ve ever seen even the worst of my nightmares. 

There is no way that thing is not a muttation. Reared back on its hind legs it stands at least twelve if not fifteen feet tall. Its fur is inky black, rippling over muscles three times the size of North’s. Its eyes blaze a brutal, blood-shot red. Its massive jaw opens, revealing dozens of teeth as long as a knife. It roars.

Tooth flings her dagger, catching it right in the shoulder. The blade digs deep into the muscle and lodges there. The bear doesn’t even blink, swiping at us with claws that put the knife to shame. He misses me by bare inches, only because I use the staff to fling myself back and out of the way.

“Run, Jack!” Tooth shouts, abandoning any illusion of our efforts with the berries. “Run, now!”

We move in the same instant, darting into the trees. The bear bellows its anger and gives chase, charging after us on all fours. It tears through the woods, ripping up bushes with paws the size of my heat and shrugging off impacts with the trees like they’re nothing. It’s fast. Too fast. I can feel its putrid, hot breath on the back of my heels.

My body slides completely out of my control and into pure flight instincts, flinging itself through the night with the staff and tree-trunks as leverage. Tooth flits ahead, matching my speed, leaping from tree trunk to tree trunk without daring to fall behind or press too far ahead.

“The tunnel!” I hear my own voice call over the thundering weight of the bear. “We have to get back to the tunnel!”

But in this dark, with this monster on our heels, there’s no way either she or I can divert our path back to the entrance we used before. It’s all we can do to keep the beast from catching up. It’s fast, much faster than a creature its size has any right to be. If either of us slow for even a moment, it will catch us, and then all we’ll be able to hope for is a quick death.

Tooth suddenly darts across my path, her violet eyes locked dead ahead. She leaps at a thin tree, swings herself once around the trunk, and propels her body into the air. If I wasn’t so terrified for my own life, I’d be amazed. The trees are too thin to hold anyone’s weight, but she never lingers long enough to let them bend or break. Instead, she flings herself ever further up and up, her feet and hands alighting briefly on the thin branches just long enough to give her a leg up on the next leap.

“This way, Jack!” she calls to me. “Hurry!”

She makes it sound so easy, but the five seconds it costs me to change direction is enough for the bear to take a swipe that catches the back of my jacket. My heart stops at the ripping noise, but I feel no pain. The claws did not reach my skin.

I stumble, catching myself with the staff. I can’t afford to fall. Up ahead I catch sight of Tooth, crouching in the moonlight, gesturing wildly with her arms. It’s not a tree she’s perched in. It’s rock, an outcropping of gray stone shoved straight up from the ground as though pushed by an earthquake.

Just short of her perch, I drop the end of my staff, drive it into the ground, and let my own momentum carry me up, up. Tooth snatches my outstretched arm, holding onto the rocks with her other for dear life. The rocks cut my feet as I scramble for purchase, pushing as she pulls. With a furious yank, she drags me onto the ledge. I snatch up my staff seconds before the bear hits the rock.

It slams into the space with a ferocious roar, jarring our ledge like an earthquake. On instinct, I grab for the only safe thing: Tooth. She does the same, our limbs tangling as we cling to one another and press our backs to the safe, sturdy rock.

The monster snarls and growls in frustration, raking its claws along the cliff a mere foot from our perch. Its nails give a bone-rattling screech as they drag across the stone. Its massive jaws rip the air, strong enough to rip a Tribute’s limb from its socket, searching for a mouthful of meat and bone to satisfy its hunger.

After long, endless minutes, it finally clues in that we’re out of its reach. The bear sinks back onto all fours, snarls up at us in the dark, and takes up a sentry position below our perch, pacing left and right to keep us boxed in.

Tooth and I continue to cling, the presence of another warm body – even a stranger’s, even a Career’s – filling some instinctual need for safety in the face of death. My mind wants to push away, but my arms refuse to obey.

“Did it get you?” Tooth whispers, her voice trembling. I can feel her fingers trying to feel out the damage to my back, but neither of us want to take our eyes from the beast for a better look.

“No.” It’s a fight just to pull in enough air for that whisper. “Just tore up the coat, I think.”

The adrenaline that kept us tangled begins to fade, loosening our muscles and allowing our bodies to settle. But it doesn’t leave for good. The predator continues to lurk just beyond our sight, its rumbling growls keeping us both pinned. There is not a lot of room up here, either. Tooth and I are going to have to stay close together if we’re both going to fit.

I shift my staff until it lies flat, wedged clumsily by the gray stone to our backs. With Tooth’s hand bracing my shoulder, I risk leaning back enough to peer up the sheer wall of rock. It’s perfectly flat, with no notches or plant life to use as hand holds. Even if we were to climb, I can see that the cliff leads nowhere – it’s not part of the mountains, only a crop of rocks pushed up by the river or an ancient earthquake.

“Can’t go up.”

“Can’t go down.” Tooth says, hers eyes locked on the bear pacing below.

I sigh, freeing my arms and turning away from her to rest my back against the stone. “Great. We’re stuck.”

Tooth’s hand finds mine in the gloom and offers a quiet squeeze. “We told North and the others when we’d be back,” she says. “When we don’t show, they’ll come looking for us.”

“Can they fight that thing?”

She bites her lip. She doesn’t have to answer. That bear, that muttation, was designed by the Gamemakers specifically to take out Tributes, to tear through the packs of trained Careers and offer wildcard hopes to the lesser Districts in order to keep the betting pool more interesting.

“They’ll figure out something,” she says finally. “Or maybe it’ll get tired of waiting and go away.”

“Maybe.” You never know with muttations. It may have the instincts of a normal bear, or it may be programmed to hunt Tributes to the death without rest or pause.

Either way, it doesn’t change our current situation. I am stuck up the side of a rock with Iana Tooth, flying warrior princess of District One. Who, not fifteen minutes ago, made out with me in a berry patch. And bit me. No doubt on live broadcast for all of Panem to see.

I rub the still-sore bite on the side of my neck, unable to look Tooth in the eye. The only sound for miles is the rumbling growls of the bear. If I have to listen to that for the rest of the night, I’ll short out every nerve in my body.

“So,” I say, fishing for anything to fill the silence. “Where’d you learn to fly? They big on the rope swings in District One?”

Tooth chuckles. Is it my imagination, or does she sound almost…sad? “Not exactly.” She gives my hand another squeeze and tucks her legs to one side, settling beside me so that our shoulders barely brush. “The fighting, the knives, those I learned in District One. The ‘flying’, I got from my mother.”

I quirk an eyebrow. This attempt at small talk has officially taken a turn for the strange. “I thought your mother was a Victor.”

“She was,” says Tooth. During her interview with Caesar Flickerman, he asked her a similar question and she beamed with pride. Now, her answer is only a statement, not a thing to be celebrated. “You know how Victors take up a hobby, after the Games? Something to fill their time since they don’t have to work and show off in the Capitol during the annual celebrations?”

“What, like, painting or playing some instrument?” That’s really all I can remember, even wracking my brain. The outlying districts rarely see the finery and side-shows of the Games, save for the opening and closing ceremonies. There’s too much work to be done to waste the time. “So, your mother had free time and…taught herself to _fly_?”

Tooth elbows me, but not with any anger. The corner of her lips twitches up in the barest smile. “I suppose you could say that, wise-guy. You know District One makes luxury goods, right? That includes props and cast work for the shows they put on in the Capitol when it’s not Games-season, like back-up dancers and musicians. So, when she got the chance to choose her talent, my mother decided to take up sky-dancing.”

The confusion on my face must be visible even in the dim light, because she sighs pityingly and adds, “You do have dancing in District Ten, don’t you?”

I sputter. “Of course we do!”

“Well there you go,” she says, like that explains everything. “It’s the same basic thing.”

“Except we dance on the ground.” I swear, this girl’s logic doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s like the schools in District One exist to fill their students’ heads with sparkles and bubble gum, save for the few with a predilection towards murdering their peers. “How do you dance in the sky?”

“Like that.” Tooth nods towards the thin trees she leapt up as though they were nothing. “And, like you said, there’s swings. There are also silk curtains and ropes, rings suspended in the air, elastic cords that make you bounce, balance beams…there’s lots of tricks to get up there. Sky-dancing is simply the art of using them to move.”

I shake my head, trying and failing to wrap my mind around taking your own life in your hands for a silly thing like that. Or perhaps worse, wasting time watching someone else risk their necks for your enjoyment. But then again, they are shows for the Capitol. Some danger must be required, lest the audience grow bored with a lack of bloodshed.

My foot slips towards the edge of our perch, only to be reeled back in when another growl reminds me of what lurks below. With night in full swing, the temperature up here is dropping, though it’s nowhere near as bitter as the frozen winds I faced on the mountain. Beside me, Tooth shivers, though she tries to keep it under wraps. She folds her arms for extra warmth and shifts a bit closer to me.

“My mother was brilliant at it,” she continues, apparently as afraid of the silence as I am. “Citizens from District One usually don’t get to be the stars of the show, but because she was a Victor the Capitol was willing to pay for her shows. They sold out every time she went there. It’s where she met my father, too – he was the only man working backstage with the strength and courage to pull off the stunts she wanted to perform. They were partners for the longest time. When they were wed, her biggest sponsor in the Capitol insisted on funding the entire ceremony. They arranged it to happen live on national TV.”

Something tickles at the back of my mind. During the interviews, Flickerman mentioned that Tooth’s mother _was_ a beloved Victor. He and Tooth both spoke of her as a thing of the past, because she’d passed away. It was recent enough that her fans were, apparently, still grieving.

“What happened to her?”

I’m not entirely sure where the question comes from. There’s no reason I should care about One’s lost Victor. It certainly isn’t like they don’t have more than enough to spare.

Tooth sighs. Her head comes to rest on my shoulder. She still hasn’t let go of my hand.

“There was an accident. It happened last year, during one of their shows. Something malfunctioned and they both…”

She bites her lip and squeezes my hand. For a split moment, she looks so vulnerable that I twist my rest to return to the grip. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not. But thank you for saying it anyway.” Her hand on mine is like a vice, holding tight and steady, refusing to let go. She takes a few deep, steadying breaths before she finally eases up and straightens her spine. “It doesn’t really matter. She’s gone. He’s gone. There’s no use dwelling on the past.”

Suddenly, her body – which had been trembling with adrenaline – goes utterly still. Her voice drops so breathy and soft that I have to strain my ears to hear it. Her eyes, now staring into nothing, are both wide and intense. “Anyway, that’s not even the whole story. It’s just what the Capitol wants them to hear.”

The way she says it makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. But before I can ask or even think of asking, a piercing sound cuts through the night air. It sounds like a high note played on a glass flute, higher than any human or animal voice could reach. However, it isn’t loud enough to echo. If anything, it seems, somehow, contained to the woods.

Instantly on alert, Tooth jerks straight-backed, her head going this way and that in search of the source. “What is that?”

“I don’t – wait. Look.”

Far below our perch, the monstrous bear stops its restless pacing. It turns its head to one side, tilting an ear towards the sky. Its continuous growling fades until there’s only the high note and the whistle of the wind. Then, it turns its back to us and slowly rumbles away into the trees, its massive footsteps heavy in the underbrush. The last glimpse we get is a flash of moonlight off the knife still lodged in its shoulder.

Tooth holds her breath and squeezes my hand. Without thinking, I do the same. We stay frozen on our ledge for a full five minutes – the time it takes for the high note to fade away. Then we linger for another ten, saying nothing, just to be sure.

Finally, Tooth sighs. Her entire body relaxes and she finally releases my hand. “It’s gone.”

I want to believe that, but we have to be sure. I find a small stone on the edge of our perch and pitch it into the trees. It bounces around, rattling a bush, but there’s no sign of animal life. Daring to stand on our tiny ledge, I hook a second rock with the crook of my staff and sling it even further into the greenery. We hear it bounce off several trunks before it settles but, again, there’s no sign of the bear.

I breathe a sigh of relief. We’re alone. “Guess we know now how they control the bear. Not that it does any good.”

In response, Tooth shrugs. “At least we might get a warning next time,” she reasons. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before it comes back.”

She drops off the ledge, rolling gracefully when her feet hit the ground to cancel out the fall. Bracing my staff on the ground and balancing on its tip closes enough of the distance for me to safely follow her down. She looks impressed when I do. Her smile warms me, even though I’ve no way to tell how much of it she really means.

“So,” I say, turning on the spot to a get a sense for the various un-blazed paths through the surrounding trees. “I hope you know where we are. Otherwise we could be stuck ‘topside’ for a while.”

Tooth nods approvingly at my ability to pick up the lingo of their group. “It’s a little different in the dark, but I think I can find the way. If we stick together, we should be able to…”

A bush rustles, leaves and branches crinkling in the night. It’s too dark to see where it is, but we both hear it.

In an instant, Tooth goes still. Knives gleam in each of her hands. Where is she keeping those? How many did she bring? The questions flit in and out of my head as quick as lightning, unable to linger because my instincts are also screaming to defend. Of course, the Gamemakers couldn’t just send the bear away with no reason. They lured us down because there’s a Tribute nearby. Or worse…a pack.

The trees rustle again. I automatically slide closer to Tooth and she presses against me, her back to mine. A shadow darts through the trees on my side and my heart leaps into my throat. If it’s Pitch Black, he could spear us both with one shot.

“There!” I point out the shadow with my staff.

Tooth whirls, but by the time she turns we’ve both lost it. She sucks in air through her teeth, raising her arms and their knives across her chest defensively. “Who’s there?” she calls into the trees. There is no answer. “If you’re not looking for a fight, then neither are we. If you don’t want any trouble, give us a sign, and leave. Okay?”

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Does that mean she serious about her pack’s vow to only defend? Or is she just trying to avoid an unnecessary confrontation? If it is Pitch’s pack, sentiment like that is just asking to be torn apart. But if it’s not…

The bushes rustle again, this time close enough that I can finally see – they’re less than ten feet away! I twist towards them, pulling the staff diagonally to defend. A split second, a Tribute bursts from the bush and rushes me with a high-pitched squeal.

It’s the girl from District Six. Even in the dark I recognize the bob of her short, tightly-curled hair. She plows into me shoulder-first, bounces off the staff, and comes again, arms flailing. She’s unarmed and missing her coat. Her clothes are torn and the tips of her bare fingers have gone completely black from frostbite.

I hold her at arm’s-length, my staff across her shoulders. She screeches like a wounded animal and something warm hits me in the face. Spit, I think. She’s snarling and drooling like a rabid dog. Her arms are too short to reach me, but she tries anyway, clawing at the air with fingers as dead as the grave.

“Jack!” Tooth calls. I expect her to fling a knife, like she did with the bear, but instead she braces one hand on my back and leaps directly over my head. She twists in mid-air, lands directly behind the girl from District Six, and pulls the attacking tribute into a full-body hold.

The two girls are about the same size, but Tooth is a Career and an athlete to boot. No matter how the girl from District Six struggles and fights, she’s no match. Tooth drags her bodily away from me before spinning them both and tossing the other Tribute to the ground.

The District Six girl tries to roll to her feet, fails, and trips. On the next try she makes it to her hands and knees, no further. She gives a soft wail of pain and jerks, flinging her arms as though trying to shake off attackers. But there’s no one there. Tooth and I both hang back, watching as the other Tribute’s face twists further into unspeakable horror. With a violent twist, her arms give out, dropping her face-first into the mud and the underbrush. She continues clawing at the air, the plants, her own skin, kicking and writhing. Then, before Tooth or I can even think to interfere, she gives a staggering gasp and goes completely still.

A canon echoes through the Arena.

It takes a moment for both Tooth and I to reconcile what’s happened. In that time, the girl from District Six doesn’t twitch. She’s dead.

Tooth gives me a nervous look. “I didn’t do that.”

“No. You didn’t.”

Carefully, we approach the fallen Tribute. The girl from District Six clearly didn’t make it away from the Cornucopia with enough to keep her alive. After only a few days in the Arena, she’s been starved to the point of fragility. Her arms are covered in strange lumps, each the size of a Capitol coin, but bright and hard as though cherry pits were stuck under her skin. However, these are dwarfed by the three muti-inch long gashes that pockmark her shoulders and back.

“These are arrow wounds,” says Tooth, tracing the shape of one with her fingers.

“How do you –”

She shoots me a pointed look. Right. Career.

She leans a little closer to the fallen girl, squinting curiously at the puncture wounds. She dips her fingers into the viscus liquid around the edges and holds it to the moonlight. Instead of red, the liquid shows deep violet, so dark that it is nearly black.

“This isn’t blood,” mutters Tooth, half to herself.

My heart nearly stops. Arrow wounds and a thick liquid the color of bottled death…

“Tooth, don’t touch anything. Give me your hand.”

Tooth blinks at me, bewildered, but immediately offers up her hand. I wipe the juice from her fingers with the edge of my shirt, careful not to leave even a trace on either her hands or mine. Out here, our hands are our only utensils. If it lingers on the skin it could get to the mouth, or enter through a cut. It all must be cleared away.

“What is it?” Tooth asks. “Jack, what’s wrong?”

“It’s berry juice. Those thick berries that grow by the trees, the ones that weren’t at the booth in the training center, they’re some kind of hallucinogenic poison. Like…like…” Blast it, what are those things called? It’s on the tip of my tongue…

“Tracker jackers?” Tooth finishes, her eyes wide with horror.

“Exactly.” At least, I assume. Tracker jacker nests lurk all over the Districts, particularly on the outskirts as one of the ways to keep people inside. But I’ve never seen one – that kind of bug doesn’t deal well with the cold that envelopes 10-23. “Pitch Black used them on the boy from District Ten, experiment on him so he’d know what they do. He must have coated his arrow-tips with the result. That’s why she attacked us. And that’s why…”

My eyes fall on the face of the girl from District Six. Her face remains twisted in an expression of horror, eyes half-open even in death. Tooth makes a soft sound of regret and lays her hand over the girl’s eyes, pushing them closed.

The District Six girl…I think she was my age. Or maybe younger, between me and Solstice. Now she’s gone.

I swallow hard, smothering the sympathy welling up inside me. There’s no time. “We need to go.”

Tooth looks up. Understanding dawns over her features. “The Pack. They might have fallen behind to collect the arrows she dropped…”

“…but there’s no way they’d let her run without making sure she was dead. Especially if they think they can raid her supplies.” I snatch up my staff and pull Tooth up by her hand. “They’re coming. We need to leave. Run!”

We take to the trees, dashing into the dark as quick and silent as our feet will carry. The near-silent hum of the hovercraft follows once we’re far enough away, descending from nowhere to gather the body of the girl from District Six. There isn’t another sound from anywhere, but Tooth and I don’t risk slowing down until we return to the hidden entrance and disappear back into the relative safety of the underground maze.

* * *

 

**A/N:** For those of you playing at home, the Tribute pool is currently down to ten: The Guardians (5), Pitch’s Career Pack (4) and the boy from District 3. Just FYI for the person who asked. 


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